
**.*.*.* m m 


^nororacyiorac' 


“*** 






::: 


- wm 




. J'/ 



'aA 













COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



























































































































. 















































































































































































































































































































































































r* 

















































































































/ 


THE WATER-BABIES 


A FAIRY TALE FOR A LAND BABY 


BY 

CHARLES KINGSLEY 

m 


ADAPTED, .WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY 

BLANCHE E. WEEKES 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

HELEN BABBITT AND ETHEL BLOSSOM 



D. C. HEATH & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



\N 


15 


Copyright, 1914 
By D. C. Heath & Company 
1A4 


MAR "6 1914 



* 


©CI.A362787 

*U>/ 


MY YOUNGEST SON 
GRENVILLE ARTHUR 
AND 

TO ALL OTHER GOOD LITTLE BOYS 


Come read me my riddle, each good little man 
If you cannot read it, no grown-up folk can. 


I 



PREFACE 


Sixty years ago Charles Kingsley dedicated “Water Babies” 
to his son Grenville — then five years old — “and all other good 
little boys,” showing very plainly that he intended it for the 
entertainment of very small people. Yet he used the book as 
a medium through which to attack certain political and social 
conditions and such petty tyrannies as helped to rob little chil- 
dren of a happy childhood ; and to ridicule and satirize many of 
the fads, foibles, and fashions of the day. 

These digressions — often of considerable length — are so far 
beyond the comprehension of a child that it is hard to believe 
they were intended for him at all, but rather for those grown-up 
people who might be called upon to read the book to him. In 
this edition, I have eliminated them almost entirely. What 
remains is the story of Tom, the chimney-sweep and water-baby, 
his adventures on land and under sea, just as it was written 
down by Charles Kingsley, himself, years ago. In truth, this 
edition of “Water-Babies” is a child’s edition of that fairy tale 
for a land-baby. ” 

B. E. W. 

Walbrook, Baltimore, Md. 

August 28, 1912. 


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


Charles Kingsley, clergyman, poet and writer of prose, was 
born at Holne, Dartmoor, Devonshire, England, June 12, 1819. 
He was the son of the Reverend Doctor Charles Kingsley, rector 
of St. Luke’s, Chelsea. 

Mrs. Kingsley in her “Memoirs” says that it was from his 
father’s side that he inherited his love of art, his great fondness 
for sports, and his fighting blood, the men of his family having 
been soldiers for generations. From his mother’s side came his 
love of travel, science and literature, and the romance of his 
nature, as well as his keen sense of humor. 

It seems that he was a most precocious child, for he wrote 
his first poem and his first sermon at the age of four years. He 
had a habit of arranging a pulpit in his playroom, with the chairs 
grouped about as if for a congregation, while his pinafore served 
him as a surplice. His mother took down one of his little ser- 
mons, and showed it to the Bishop of Peterborough, who pre- 
dicted for the child a brilliant future. Time proved the truth of 
this prediction. Kingsley was one of the most noted preachers 
of his day, and this in face of the fact that he was afflicted with 
a hesitation in his speech, and a constitutional shyness which the 
hesitation naturally increased. 

From boyhood he was a keen observer of the world around 
him, and became a great lover of natural history. He had a 
habit of taking long rambles over the moors or along the sea- 
coast. One who often accompanied him on these walks says, 
No bird or beast, or insect, scarcely a drifting cloud, passed by 
him unnoticed or unwelcomed.” He was possessed of great 
bodily activity. Once, as a young man, he walked from Cam- 
bridge to London in one day, a distance of fifty-two miles. A 
walk of twenty-five miles was a pleasure in which he indulged 
quite often. 

In 1842 he was graduated from Cambridge, and two years 


VI 


later, at the age of twenty-three, he became the rector of a church 
at Eversley, Hampshire, England. Though he kept this living 
until his death he was also Canon of the Cathedral of Chester, 
from 1869 to 1873, and of Westminster from 1873 until he died. 
He was also chaplain in ordinary to the Queen. 

At the beginning of his ministry at Eversley there was not a 
man or woman among his parishioners who could read and write. 
At an early age the boys and girls went into the fields to labor 
for a living. Moreover they had had very little religious instruc- 
tion. Kingsley, a man of wide, ready and tender sympathy, was 
deeply touched by these conditions, and set himself to work to 
remedy them. He established shoe and coal clubs, a loan fund, 
a lending library, and a night school for adults which met at the 
rectory for want of another place. His influence over these poor 
people was very great, — more especially, he tells us, over “wild 
young fellows.” This was largely due to the fact that he “could 
swing a flail with the threshers in the barn, turn his swath with 
the mowers in the meadow, pitch hay with the hay-makers in 
the pasture. From knowing every fox earth on the moor, the 
reedy ^over’ of the pike, the still hole where the chub lay, he 
had a word of sympathy for the huntsman and old poacher, 
with the farmer he discussed the rotation of crops, and with the 
laborer the science of hedging and ditching.” 

The condition in which he found the laboring people of his 
own little parish brought him to a realization of the wrongs the 
working class all over England had to endure ; and he became 
their champion, fighting their cause with tongue and pen as long 
as his life lasted. He endeavored through his writings to im- 
prove their condition, having in mind the idea of securing for 
them better homes and better wages. He unhesitatingly at- 
tacked any law that, to him, seemed inimical to their welfare. 
He gave much thought to the laws of health and made frequent 
appeals to the government to improve the laws of sanitation. He 
believed that cleanliness of- body was not next to but part of 
godliness. He preached it to rich and poor alike. His sermons 
and writings had an enormous influence. They brought him 
many friends — and sometimes enemies — and a correspondence 
with people far and near seeking his advice. 


I 


Vll 


, \ • 

He wrote many short articles under the pen name of Parson 
Lot.” 

In “Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet” he showed some of the 
wrongs of the working class, and the book was largely instrumen- 
tal in arousing the upper classes to a realization of their respon- 
sibilities. In “Yeast: A Problem,” he considered the moral 
questions that confronted rural communities and the problems 
that resulted. 

“Hypatia ” was a book that brought him much censure, par- 
ticularly from the clergy of his own denomination. It was con- 
demned by many as immoral, yet it is recognized now, by nearly 
every one, as a valuable bit of history and a work of art. 

Among the most important of his other works are: The 
Saint’s Tragedy” published in 1848; “Twenty Five Village 
Sermons” published the same year as “Alton Locke” and 
“Yeast.” Then came a period of three years during which he 
produced nothing of particular note. In 1852 he brought out 
“Phaeton” and “Sermons on National Subjects.” The second 
series of these sermons appeared in 1854, as did “Alexandria 
and Her Schools.” In 1855 he wrote “Westward Ho ! ” and 
“ Sermons For the Times” ; in 1856, “The Heroes”; in 1857, 
“Two Years Ago”; and in 1858, “Andromeda” and other 
poems. In 1860 he wrote Limits of Exact Science Applied to 
History”; in 1863, “Water Babies ”, and “Sermons on the 
Pentateuch.” In 1864 came “The Roman and the Teuton.” 
This book was really a course of lectures delivered at Cambridge, 
while Professor of History. In 1866 he produced David and 
Other Sermons,” and “ Hereward the Wake ” ; in 1867, a book 
of lectures and another of sermons. In 1869 he wrote another 
child story, “ Madam How and Lady Why.” 

In 1871 he visited the West Indies, his mother’s birthplace. 
The result of this visit was “At Last: A Christmas In the West 
Indies.” Between 1871 and 1875 he gave the world “Town 
Geology”; “Discipline and Other Sermons” ; “Prose Idylls”; 
“Plays and Puritans”; “Health and Education”; “West- 
minster Sermons.” In 1873-4 he visited the United States, 
traveling from coast to coast, and in 1875 appeared “Lectures 
Delivered In America.” 

Scattered through his prose writings are many poems of a high 


viii 


order. One critic says of him, “ His genius was essentially 
that of a poet.” He did not give himself up to writing poetry, 
however, for he believed that the world at that time needed 
something to turn men’s minds to morality, religion and scientific 
truths. The condition in which he found many of his parishion- 
ers at Eversley had made a lasting impression upon him. 

Charles Kingsley was the most distinguished member of a 
talented family. His brothers, George and Henry, were writers 
also, while his daughter, Mrs. Harrison, was well known in the 
literary world under the name Lucas Malet. 

He was a versatile and prolific writer, a bold thinker, a bril- 
liant conversationalist, a wide reader, and a man of great modes- 
ty. He possessed wonderful energy, throwing himself heart and 
soul into whatever he undertook, breaking down many times 
from over work. He loved to be out in the open; many of his 
books were planned while sitting beside a trout stream. 

His home life was ideal. He was a companion to his chil- 
dren. Several of his books were written for, and dedicated to them. 
He was a great lover of animals and believed they had a future 
state. He knew the note of every bird that nested about Evers- 
ley, and speaks of them and the beetles and the crickets, as 
“ God’s choir. ” 

He died January 23, 1875. His body might have rested in 
Westminster but it lies instead in the little churchyard at Evers- 
ley. He had chosen the place himself, years before. On the 
cross above his grave is written the keynote of his faith, God 
is Love.” 


IX 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

1. Soon they came up with a poor Irish-woman . . 7 

2. The room was all dressed in white . . . 17 

3. Something went oft in his face 27 

4. “Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint . . 38 

5. “I’m a dragon-fly, now” 61 

6. Tom looked around for water-babies ... 86 

7. “It’s a water-baby,” cried Ellie .... 96 

8. “Come along,” said Tom; “don’t you see she is 

dead?” 102 

9. But she took Tom in her arms .119 

10. “There he is,” said the fairy; “and you must teach 

him to be good” 128 

11. And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of 

pure oil 150 

12. He saw the fairies come up from below . . 157 

13. “What do you want, my little man?” . . . 164 

14. Tom held on tight to its claws .... 172 

15. Tom thought he was crying 182 

16. “I’ll get you one,” said Tom; and he took up a live 

coal 192 

17. They stood and looked for seven years more, and 

neither spoke nor stirred 200 

xi 



Water- Babies 


CHAPTER I 

Once upon a time there was a little chimney- 
sweep, and his name was Tom. That is a short 
name, and you have heard it before, so you will not 
have much trouble in remembering it. 

He lived in a great town in the North country, 
where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and 
plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to 
spend. He could not read nor write, and did not care 
to do either ; and he never washed himself, for there 
was no water up the court where he lived. He had 
never been taught to say his prayers. 

He cried half his time and laughed the other half. 
He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rub- 
bing his poor knees and elbows raw ; and when the 
soot got in his eyes, which it did every day in the 
week ; and when his master beat him, which he did 
every day in the week ; and when he had not enough 
to eat, which happened every day in the week like- 
wise. And he laughed the other half of the day, 
when he was tossing half-pennies with the other 
boys, or playing leap-frog over posts, or bowling 


1 


stones at the horses’ legs as they trotted by, — which 
last was excellent fun, when there was a wall at hand 
behind which to hide. 

As for chimney-sweeping, and being hungry, and 
being beaten, he took all that for the way of the 
world, like the rain and snow and thunder, and stood 
manfully with his back to it till it was over, as his 
old donkey did to the hail-storm ; and then shook his 
ears and was as jolly as ever; and thought of the fine 
times coming, when he would be a man, and a master 
sweep, and sit in the public-house with a quart of 
beer and a long pipe, and play cards for silver money, 
and wear velveteens and ankle-jacks, and keep a white 
bull-dog with one gray ear, and carry her puppies in 
his pocket, just like a man. And he would have 
apprentices, one, two, three, if he could. How he 
would bully them, and knock them about, just as 
his master did to him ; and make them carry home 
the soot sacks while he rode before them on his 
donkey, with a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his 
button-hole, like a king at the head of his army. 
Yes, there were good times coming; and when his 
master let him have a pull at the leavings of his beer, 
Tom was the j oiliest boy in the whole town. 

One day a smart little groom rode into the court 
where Tom lived. Tom was just hiding behind a 
wall, to heave half a brick at his horse’s legs, as is the 
custom of that country when they welcome strang- 
ers ; but the groom saw him, and hallooed to him to 
know where Mr. Grimes lived. Now, Mr. Grimes 


2 


was Tom’s own master, and Tom was a very good 
man of business, and always civil to customers, so he 
put the half-brick down quietly behind the wall, and 
proceeded to take orders. 

Mr. Grimes was to come up next morning to Sir 
John Harthover’s, at the Place, for his old chimney- 
sweep was gone to prison, and the chimneys wanted 
sweeping. And so he rode away, not giving Tom 
time to ask what the sweep had gone to prison for, 
which was a matter of interest to Tom, as he had 
been in prison once or twice himself. Moreover, the 
groom looked so very neat and clean, with his drab 
gaiters, drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie 
with a smart pin in it, and clean, round, ruddy face, 
that Tom was quite offended and disgusted at his 
appearance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow, 
who gave himself airs because he wore smart clothes, 
and other people paid for them ; and he went behind 
the wall to fetch the half-brick after all, but did not, 
remembering that he had come in the way of busi- 
ness, and was, as it were, under a flag of truce. 

His master was so delighted at the new customer 
that he knocked Tom down out of hand, and drank 
more beer that night than he usually did in two, in 
order to be sure of getting up in time the next morn- 
ing; for the more a man’s head aches when he wakes, 
the more glad he is to turn out and have a breath of 
fresh air. And when he did get up at four the next 
morning, he knocked Tom down again, in order to 
teach him (as young gentlemen used to be taught 


3 


at public schools) that he must be an extra good boy 
that day, as they were going to a very £reat house, 
and might make a very good thing of it, if they could 
but give satisfaction. 

Tom thought so likewise, and indeed would have 
done and behaved his best, even without being 
knocked down. For of all places upon earth, Harth- 
over Place (which he had never seen) was the most 
wonderful, and of all men on earth, Sir John (whom 
he had seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) 
was the most awful. 

Harthover was really a grand place, even for the 
rich North country; with a house so large that in the 
frame-breaking riots, which Tom could just remem- 
ber, the Duke of Wellington, and ten thousand sol- 
diers to match, were easily housed therein ; at least 
so Tom believed ; with a park full of deer, which 
Tom believed to be monsters who were in the habit 
of eating children; with miles of game preserves, in 
which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at 
times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and 
wondered what they tasted like ; with a noble salmon- 
river, in which Mr. Grimes and his friends would 
have liked to poach ; but then they must have got 
into cold water, and that they did not like at all. 

In short, Harthover was a grand place, and Sir 
John a grand old man, whom even Mr. Grimes re- 
spected ; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to 
prison when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a 
week; not only did he own all the land about for 


4 


miles; not only was he as jolly, honest, sensible a 
squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would do 
what he thought right by his neighbors, as well as 
get what he thought right for himself; but, what 
was more, he weighed full fifteen stone, was nobody 
knew how many inches round the chest, and could 
have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in a fair fight, 
which very few folk round there could do, and which, 
my dear little boy, would not have been right for 
him to do, as a great many things are not which one 
both can do, and would like very much to do. So 
Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode 
through the town, and called him a “buirdly awd 
chap”, and his young ladies “gradely lassies”, which 
are two high compliments in the North country ; and 
thought that made up for his poaching Sir John’s 
pheasants. 

Now, I dare say, you never got up at three o’clock 
on a midsummer morning. Some people get up 
then because they want to catch salmon : and some 
because they want to climb the Alps; and a great 
many more because they must, like Tom. But, I 
assure you, that three o’clock on a midsummer morn- 
ing is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four 
hours, and all the three hundred and sixty-five days ; 
and why every one does not get up then, I never 
could tell, save that they are all determined to spoil 
their complexions by doing all night what they 
might just as well do all day. But Tom, instead of 
going out to dinner at half-past eight at night, and to 


5 


a ball at ten, and finishing off somewhere between 
twelve and four, went to bed at seven, when his mas- 
ter went to the public-house, and slept like a dead 
pig ; for which reason he was as pert as a game-cock 
(who always gets up early to wake the maids), and 
just ready to get up, when the fine gentlemen and 
ladies were just ready to go to bed. 

So he and his master set out ; Grimes rode the don- 
key in front, and Tom and the brushes walked behind ; 
out of the court, and up the street, past the closed 
window-shutters, and the winking, weary policemen, 
and the roofs all shining gray in the gray dawn. 

They passed through the pit-men’s village, all shut 
up and silent now, and through the turnpike; and 
then they were out in the real country, and plodding 
along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, 
with no sound but the groaning and thumping of 
the pit-engine in the next field. But the road soon 
grew white, and the walls likewise; and at the 
wall’s foot grew long grass and gay flowers, all 
drenched with dew; and instead of the groaning 
of the pit-engine, they heard the skylark saying 
his matins high up in the air, and the pit-bird warb- 
ling in the sedges, as he had warbled all night long. 

All else was silent. For old Mother Earth was 
still fast asleep, and like many pretty people, she 
looked still prettier asleep than awake. The great 
elm-trees in gold-green meadows were fast asleep 
above, and the cows fast asleep beneath them ; nay, the 
few clouds which were about were fast asleep likewise, 


6 



SOON THEY" CAME UP WITH A POOR IRISH WOMAN 


and so tired that they had Iain down on the earth to 
rest, in long white flakes and bars, among the stems 
of the elm-trees, and along the tops of the alders by 
the stream, waiting for the sun to bid them rise, and 
go about their day’s business in the clear blue overhead. 

On they went ; and Tom looked and looked, for he 
had never been so far into the country before ; and 
longed to get over a gate, and pick buttercups, and 
look for bird’s nests in the hedge; but Mr. Grimes 
was a man of business, and would not have heard of 
that. 

Soon they came up with a poor Irish woman trudg- 


7 


in g along with a bundle on her back. She had a gray 
shawl over her head, and a crimson madder petticoat ; 
so you may be sure she came from Galway. She had 
neither shoes or stockings, and limped along as if she 
were tired and footsore ; but she was a very tall and 
handsome woman, with bright gray eyes, and heavy 
black hair hanging about her cheeks. And she took 
Mr. Grimes’ fancy so much, that when he came 
along side, he called out to her: 

“This is a hard road for a gradely foot like that. 
Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me ? ” 

But perhaps she did not admire Mr. Grimes’ look 
and voice; for she said quietly: 

“No, thank you : I’d rather walk with your little 
lad here.” 

“You may please yourself,” growled Grimes, and 
went on smoking. 

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and 
asked him where he lived, and what he knew, and 
all about himself, till Tom thought he had never met 
such a pleasant-spoken woman. And she asked him 
at last if he said his prayers ! and seemed sad when 
he told her that he knew no prayers to say. 

Then he asked her where she lived, and she said 
far away by the sea. And Tom asked her about the 
sea ; and she told him how it rolled and roared over 
the rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright 
summer days, for the children to bathe and play in 
it ; and many a story more, till Tom longed to go 
and see the sea, and bathe in it likewise. 


8 


At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a 
spring ; not such a spring as you see here, which soaks 
up out of the white gravel in the bog, among red fly 
catchers, and pink bottle heath, and sweet white 
orchis; nor such a one as you n ay see here, too, 
which bubbles up under the warm sand bank in the 
hollow lane, by the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes 
the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and night, 
all the year round; not such a spring as either of 
those; but a real North country lime-stone fountain, 
like one of those in Sicily or Greece, where the old 
heathen fancied the nymphs sat cooling themselves 
the hot summer’s day. Out of a low cave of rock, 
at the foot of a lime-stone crag, the great foun- 
tain rose, quelling, and bubbling, and gurgling, so 
clear that you could not tell where the water ended 
and the air began; and ran away under the road, a 
stream large enough to turn a mill ; among the blue 
geranium, and golden globe flower, and wild rasp- 
berry, and the bird cherry with its tassels of snow. 

And there Grimes stopped and looked; and Tom 
looked, too. Tom was wondering whether anything 
lived in that dark cave, and came out at night to fly 
in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at 
all. Without a word he got off his donkey, and 
clambered over the low road wall, and knelt down, 
and began dipping his ugly head into the spring — 
and very dirty he made it. 

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. 
The Irish-woman helped him, and showed him how 


9 


to tie them up; and a very pretty nosegay they had 
made between them. But when he saw Grimes ac- 
tually wash, he stopped, quite astonished ; and when 
Grimes had finished, and began shaking his ears to 
dry them, he said : 

“Why, master, I never saw you do that before.” 

“Nor will again, most likely, ’Twasn’t for clean- 
liness 1 did it, but for coolness. J’d be ashamed to 
want washing every week or so, like any smutty col- 
lier lad. ” 

“ I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said poor 
little Tom. “It must be as good as putting it under 
the town pump; and there is no beadle here to drive 
a chap away. ” 

“Thou come along,” said Grimes; “what dost 
want with washing thyself? Thou didst not drink a 
half gallon of beer last night, like me.” 

“ I don’t care for you,” said naughty Tom, and he 
ran down to the stream, and began washing his face. 

Grimes was very sulky, because the woman pre- 
ferred Tom’s company to his; so he dashed at him 
with horrid words, and tore him from his knees and 
began beating him. But Tom was accustomed to 
that, and got his head safe between Mr. Grimes’ legs, 
and kicked his shins with all his might. 

“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas 
Grimes?” cried the Irish-woman over the wall. 

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his 
name; but all he answered was, “No, nor never 
was yet; ” and went on beating Tom. 


10 


“True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of 
yourself, you would have gone over into Vendale 
long ago.” 

“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted 
Grimes; but he left off beating Tom. 

“I know about Vendale, and I know about you, 
too. I know, for instance, what happened in Alder- 
mire Copse, by night, two years ago come Martin- 
mas. ” 

“You do?” shouted Grimes, and leaving Tom, he 
climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman. 
Tom thought he was going to strike her; but she 
looked him too full and fierce in the face for that. 

“Yes, I was there,” said the Irish-woman quietly. 

“You are no Irish-woman by your speech,” said 
Grimes, after many bad words. 

“Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and 
if you strike that boy again, I’ll tell what I know.” 

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey 
without another word. 

“Stop!” said the Irish-woman. “I have one 
more word for you both ; for you will both see me 
again before it is all over. Those that wish to be 
clean, clean they will be ; and those that wish to be 
foul, foul they will be. Remember.” 

And she turned away, and through a gate into the 
meadow. Grimes stood still a moment, like a man 
who had been stunned. Then he rushed after her, 
shouting, “You come back.” But when he got 
into the meadow, the woman was not there. 


11 


Had she hidden away? There was no place to 
hide in. But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, 
for he was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her dis- 
appearing so suddenly; but look where they would, 
she was not there. 

Grimes came back again, as silent as a post, for he 
was a little frightened ; and getting on his donkey, 
filkd a fresh pipe, and smoked away, leaving Tom in 
peace. 

And now they had gone three miles and more, and 
came to Sir John’s lodge gates. 

Very grand lodges they were, with very grand 
iron gates and stone gate posts, and on the top of 
each a most dreadful bogey all teeth, horns, and 
tail, which was the crest Sir John’s ancestors wore 
in the War of the Roses; and very prudent men 
they were to wear it, for all their enemies must 
have run for their lives at the very first sight of 
them. 

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper 
on the spot, and opened it. 

“I was told to expect thee,” he said. “Now 
thou’ It be so good as to keep to the main avenue, 
and not let me find a hare or a rabbit on thee 
when thou comest back. I shall look sharp for one, 
I tell thee.” 

“Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” 
quoth Grimes, and at that he laughed; and the 
keeper laughed and said: “If that’s thy sort I may 
as well walk up with thee to the hall. ’ ’ 


12 


“I think thou best had. It’s thy business to see 
after thy game, man, and not mine.*’ 

So the keeper went with them; and to Tom’s 
surprise, he and Grimes chatted together all the 
way quite pleasantly. He did not know that a 
gamekeeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and 
a poacher a keeper turned inside out. 

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile 
long, and between their stems Tom peeped trem- 
bling at the horns of the sleeping deer, which stood 
up among the ferns. Tom had never seen such enor- 
mous trees, and as he looked up he fancied that 
the blue sky rested on their heads. But he was puz- 
zled very much by a strange murmuring noise, which 
followed them all the way. So much puzzled, that 
at last he took courage to ask the keeper what it was. 

He spoke very civilly and called him Sir, for he 
was horribly afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, 
and he told him they were the bees about the lime 
flowers. 

‘ 4 What are bees?” asked Tom. 

“ What make honey.” 

“What is honey?” asked Tom. 

“Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes. 

“Let the boy be,” said the keeper. “He’s a civil, 
young chap now, and that’s more than he’ll be long 
if he bides with thee.” 

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment. 

“I wish I were a keeper,” said Tom, “to live in 
such a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, 


13 


and have a real dog- whistle at my button, like you.” 

The keeper laughed ; he was a kind-hearted fellow. 

“Let well alone, lad, and ill too, at times. Thy 
life is safer than mine at all events, eh, Mr. Grimes?” 

And Grimes laughed again, and then the two men 
began talking quite low. Tom could hear, though, 
that it was about some poaching fight ; and at last 
Grimes said surlily, “Hast thou anything against 
me?” 

“Not now.” 

“ Then ask me no questions till thou hast, for I am 
a man of honor.” And they both laughed again, 
and thought it a very good joke. 

And by this time they were come up to the great 
iron gates in front of the house; and Tom stared 
through them at the rhododendrons and azaleas, 
which were all in flower ; and then at the house itself, 
and wondered how many chimneys were in it, and 
how long agolt was built, and what was the man’s 
name that built it, and whether he got much money 
for his job? 

These were very difficult questions to answer. For 
Harthover had been built at nineteen different times 
and in nineteen different styles, and looked as if 
someone had built a whole street of houses of every 
imaginable shape, and then stirred them together 
with a spoon. 

But Tom and his master did not go in through the 
great iron gates, as if they had been Dukes or Bishops, 
but round the back way, and a very long way round 


14 


it was ; and into a little back door, where the ash boy 
let them in, yawning horribly ; and then in the pas- 
sage the housekeeper met them, in such a flowered 
chintz dressing-gown, that Tom mistook her for my 
Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders 
about, “You will take care of this, and take care of 
that,” as if he were going up the chimneys, and not 
Tom. And Grimes listened and said every now and 
then, under his voice, “You’ll mind that, you little 
beggar?” and Tom did mind, all at least that he 
could. 

And then the housekeeper turned them into a 
grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, 
and bade them begin, in a lofty and tremendous 
voice ; and so, after a whimper or two, and a kick 
from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up 
the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room 
to watch the furniture ; to whom Mr. Grimes paid 
many playful and chivalrous compliments, but met 
with very slight encouragement in return. 

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but 
he swept so many that he got quite tired, and puz- 
zled, too, for they were not like the town flues to 
which he was accustomed, but such as you would 
find — if you would only get up them and look, which 
perhaps you would not like to do — in old country 
houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been 
altered again and again, till they ran one into another. 
So Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that he 
cared much for that, though he was in pitchy dark- 


15 


ness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a 
mole is underground ; but at last, coming down as he 
thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong 
one, and found himself standing on the hearth-rug in 
a room the like of which he had never seen before. 

Tom had never been in gentlefolks’ rooms but 
when the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, 
and the furniture huddled together under a cloth, 
and the pictures covered with aprons and dusters ; 
and he had often wondered what the rooms were like 
when they were all ready for the quality to sit in. 

The room was all dressed in white — white window 
curtains, with white bed-curtains, white furniture, 
white walls, with just a few lines of pink here and 
there. The carpet was all over gay little flowers; 
and the walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, 
which amused Tom very much. There were pictures 
of ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and 
dogs. The horses he liked ; but the dogs he did not 
care for much, for there were no bull dogs among 
them, not even a terrier. But the two pictures which 
took his fancy most were one, a man in long gar- 
ments, with little children and their mothers round 
him, who was laying his hand upon the children’s 
heads. That was a very pretty picture, Tom thought, 
to hang in a lady’s room. For he could see it was a 
lady’s room by the dresses which lay about. 

The other picture was that of a man nailed to a 
cross, which surprised Tom very much. He fancied 
he had seen something like it in a shop- window. But 


16 



THE ROOM WAS ALL DRESSED IN WHITE. 

why was it there? “Poor man! ” thought Tom, “he 
looks so kind and quiet. But why should the lady 
have such a sad picture as that in her room? Perhaps 
it was a kinsman of hers, who had been murdered 
by the savages in foreign parts, and she kept it there 
for a remembrance.” And Tom felt very sad, and 
awed, and turned to look at something else. 

The next thing he saw, and that, too, puzzled him, 
was a washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap 
and brushes, and towels, and a large bath full of clean 
water — what a heap of things all for washing! “She 
must be a very dirty lady,” thought Tom, “by my 


17 


master’s rule, to want as much scrubbing as that. 
But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out of 
the way so well afterwards, for I don't see a speck 
about the room, not even on the very towels.” 

And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that 
dirty lady, and held his breath in astonishment. 
Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white 
pillow, lay the most beautiful little girl Tom had 
even seen. Her cheeks were almost as white as the 
pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread 
all about over the bed. She might have been as old 
as Tom, or maybe a year or so older; but Tom did 
not think of that. He thought only of her delicate 
skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was 
a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen 
in the shops. But when he saw her breathe, he made 
up his mind that she was alive, and stood staring at 
her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven. 

“No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have 
been dirty,” thought Tom to himself. And then he 
thought, “And are all people like that when they 
are washed?” And he looked down at his own wrist 
and tried to rub the soot off, and wondered whether 
it ever would come off. “Certainly I should look 
much prettier then, if I grew at all like her.” 

And looking round suddenly he saw, standing close 
to him, a little ugly, black, ragged figure, with 
bleared eyes and grinning white teeth. He turned 
upon it angrily. What did such a little black ape 
want in that sweet young lady’s room? And behold, 


18 


it was himself, reflected in a great mirror, the like of 
which Tom had never seen before. 

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out 
that he was dirty ; and burst into tears with shame 
and anger; and turned to sneak up the chimney again 
and hide; and upset the fender and threw the fire- 
irons down, with a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles 
tied to ten thousand mad dogs’ tails. 

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, 
seeing Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock. In 
rushed a stout old nurse from the next room, and, 
seeing Tom, likewise, made up her mind that he had 
come to rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed 
at him, as he lay over the fender, so fast that she 
caught him by the jacket. But she did not hold 
him. Tom had been in a policeman’s hands many a 
time, and out of them too, what is more ; and he 
would have been ashamed to face his friends forever 
if he had been stupid enough to be caught by an old 
woman; so he doubled under the good lady’s arm, 
across the room, and out of the window in a moment. 

He did not need to drop out, though he would 
have done so bravely enough. Nor even to let him- 
self down by a spout, which would have been an old 
game to him; for once he got up by a spout to the 
church roof, he said to take jackdaws’ eggs, but the 
policeman said to steal lead; and, when he was seen 
on high, sat there till the sun got too hot, and came 
down by another spout, leaving the policemen to go 
back to the station house and eat their dinners. 


19 


But all under the window spread a tree, with great 
leaves and sweet white flowers, almost as big as his 
head. It was a magnolia, I suppose; but Tom knew 
nothing about that and cared less ; for down the tree 
he went like a cat, and across the garden lawn, and 
over the iron railings, and up the park toward the 
wood, leaving the old nurse to scream murder and 
fire at the window. 

The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw 
down his scythe ; caught his leg in it, and cut his shin 
open, whereby he kept his bed for a week ; but in his 
hurry he never knew it, and gave chase to poor Tom. 

The dairy-maid heard the noise, got the churn 
between her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all 
the cream; and yet she jumped up, and gave chase 
to Tom. 

A groom cleaning Sir John's hack at the stables let 
him go loose, whereby he kicked himself lame in five 
minutes; but he ran out and gave chase to Tom. 

Grimes upset the soot-sack in the new gravelled 
yard, and spoilt it all utterly, but he ran out and 
gave chase to Tom. 

The old steward opened the park-gate in such a 
hurry that he hung up his pony's chin upon the 
spikes, and for aught I know, it hangs there still ; 
but he jumped off, and gave chase to Tom. 

The ploughman left his horses at the headland, and 
one jumped over the fence and pulled the other into 
the ditch, plough and all ; but he ran on, and gave 
chase to Tom. 


20 


The keeper who was taking a stoat out of a trap, 
let the stoat go and caught his own finger; but he 
jumped up, and ran after Tom; and, considering 
what he said, and how he looked, I should have been 
sorry for Tom if he had caught him. 

Sir John looked out of his study window (for he 
was an early old gentleman) and up at the nurse, and 
a marten dropped mud in his eye, so that he had at 
last to send for the doctor; and yet he ran out, and 
gave chase to Tom. 

The Irish-woman, too, was walking up to the 
house to beg — she must have got round by some 
byway — but she threw away her bundle, and gave 
chase to Tom likewise. 

Only my Lady did not give chase; for when she 
had put her head out of the window, her night-wig 
fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady's 
maid, and send her down for it privately, which quite 
put her out of the running. 

In a word, never was there heard at Hall Place — 
not even when the fox was killed in the conservatory, 
among acres of broken glass and tons of smashed 
flower-pots — such a hubbub, babel, shindy, hulla- 
balloo, stramash and charivari, and total contempt of 
dignity, repose and order, as that day, when Grimes, 
gardener, groom, the dairy-maid, Sir John, the 
steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and the Irish- 
woman, all ran up the park, shouting, “Stop thief!” 
in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds’ 
worth of jewels in his empty pockets; and the very 


21 


magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and 
screaming, as if he were a fo^, beginning to droop 
his brush. 

And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park 
with his little bare feet, like a small black gorilla 
fleeing to the forest. Alas for him ! there was no big 
father gorilla therein to take his part — to scratch out 
the gardener’s inside with one paw, toss the dairy- 
maid into a tree with another, and wrench off Sir 
John’s head with a third, while he cracked the 
keeper’s skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been 
a cocoanut or a paving stone. 

However, Tom did not remember having ever had 
a father; so he did not look for one, and expected to 
have to take care of himself; while as for running, he 
could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage- 
coach, if there was a chance of a copper or a cigar 
end, and turn Catherine- wheels on his hands and feet 
ten times following, which is more than you can do. 
Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch 
him ; and we will hope that they did not catch him 
at all. 

Tom, of course, made for the woods. He had 
never been in a wood in his life ; but he was sharp 
enough to know that he might hide in a bush, or 
swarm up a tree, and, altogether, had more chance 
there than in the open. If he had not known that, he 
would have been foolisher than a mouse or a minnow. 

But when he got into the wood, he found it a very 
different sort of a place from what he had fancied. 


22 


He pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons, and 
found himself at once caught in a trap. 

The boughs laid hold of his legs and arms, poked 
him in his face and in his stomach, made him shut 
his eyes tight, (though that was no great loss, for he 
could not see at best a yard before his nose); and 
when he got through the rhododendrons, the hassock- 
grass and sedges tumbled him over, and cut his poor 
little fingers afterwards most spitefully ; the birches 
birched him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman 
at Eton, and over the face, too, (which is not fair 
swishing, as all brave boys will agree), and the 
lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins as if they 
had sharks’ teeth — which lawyers are likely enough 
to have. 

4 4 1 must get out of this,” thought Tom, 4 4 or I 
shall stay here till somebody comes to help me, 
which is just what I don't want.” 

But just how to get out was a difficult matter.. 
And indeed I don’t think he would ever have got 
out at all, but have stayed there till the cock-robins 
covered him with leaves, if he had not suddenly run 
his head against a wall. 

Now running your head against a wall is not 
pleasant, especially if it is a loose wall, with the 
stones all set on edge, and a sharp-cornered one hits 
you between the eyes, and makes you see all manner 
of beautiful stars. The stars are very beautiful, cer- 
tainly; but unfortunately they go in the twenty- 
thousandth part of a split second, and the pain which 


23 


comes after them does not. And so Tom hurt his 
head; but he was a brave boy, and did not mind 
that a penny. He guessed that over the wall the 
cover would end; and up it he went, and over like a 
squirrel. 

And there he was, out upon the great grouse 
moors, which the country folk called Harthover 
Fell — heather and bog and rock, stretching away 
and up, up to the very sky. 

Now, Tom was a cunning little fellow — as cunning 
as an old Exmoor stag. Why not? Though he 
was but ten years old, he had lived longer than 
most stags, and had more wits to start with into the 
bargain. He knew as well as a stag that if he backed 
he might throw the hounds out. So the first thing 
he did when he was over the wall was to make the 
neatest double, sharp to his right, and run along 
under the wall for nearly half a mile. 

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the 
steward, and the gardener, and the ploughman, and 
the dairy-maid, and all the hue-and-cry together, 
went on ahead half a mile in the very opposite direc- 
tion, and inside the wall, leaving him a mile off on 
the outside; while Tom heard their shouts die away 
in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily. 

At last he came to a dip in the land, and went to 
the bottom of it, and then he turned bravely away 
from the wall and up the moor; for he knew that 
he had put a hill between him and his enemies, and 
could go on without their seeing him. 


24 


But the Irish-woman, alone of them all, had seen 
which way Tom went. She had kept ahead of every 
one the whole time; and yet she neither walked nor 
ran. She went along quite smoothly and gracefully, 
while her feet twinkled past each other so fast, that 
you could not see which was foremost ; till every one 
asked the other who the strange woman was ; and all 
agreed, for want of something better to say, that she 
must be in league with Tom. But when she came 
to the plantation, they lost sight of her; and they 
could do no less. For she went quietly over the wall 
after Tom, and followed him wherever he went. Sir 
John and the rest saw no more of her; and out of 
sight was out of mind. 

And now Tom was right away into the heather 
and there were rocks and stones lying about every- 
where, and instead of the moor growing flat as he 
went upwards, it grew more and more broken and 
hilly, but not so rough but that little Tom could jog 
along well enough, and find time to stare about at 
the strange place, which was like a new world to him. 

He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses 
marked on their backs, who sat in the middle of 
their webs, and when they saw Tom coming, shook 
them so fast that they became invisible. Then he 
saw lizards, brown and gray and green, and thought 
they were snakes, and would sting him; but they 
were as much frightened as he, and shot away into 
the heath. And then, under a rock, he saw a pretty 
sight — a great, brown, sharp-nosed creature, with a 


25 


white tag to her brush, and round her four or five 
smutty little cubs, the funniest fellows Tom ever 
saw. She lay on her back, rolling about, and stretch- 
ing out her legs and head and tail in the bright sun- 
shine; and the cubs jumped over her, and ran about 
her, and nibbled her paws, and lugged her about by 
the tail; and she seemed to enjoy it mightily. But 
one selfish little fellow stole away from the rest to a 
dead crow close by, and dragged it off to hide it, 
though it was nearly as big as he was. Whereat all 
his little brothers set off after him in full cry, and 
saw Tom; then all ran back, and up jumped Mrs. 
Vixen, and caught one up in her mouth, and all the 
rest toddled after her, and into a dark crack in the 
rocks ; and there was an end of the show. And next 
he had a fright; for, as he was scrambling up the 
sandy brow — whirr-poof-poof-cock-cock-kick- — some- 
thing went off in his face, with a most horrid noise. 
He thought the ground had blown up, and the end 
of the world had come. 

And when he opened his eyes (for he had shut 
them very tight), it was only an old cock-grouse, 
who had been washing himself in the sand, like an 
Arab, for want of water; and who, when Tom had 
all but trodden on him, jumped up with a noise like 
an express train, leaving his wife and children to 
shift for themselves, like an old coward, and went 
off screaming, “ Cur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck-murder, 
thieves, fire, cur-u-uck-cock-kick — the end of the 
world is come — kick- kick-cock- kick. ” He was always 


26 


fancying that the end of the world was come, when 
anything happened which was farther off than the 
end of his own nose. But the end of the world was 
not come, any more than the twelfth of August was ; 
though the old cock-grouse was quite certain of it. 



SOMETHING WENT OFF IN HIS FACE 


So the old grouse came back to his wife and family 
an hour afterwards, and said solemnly, “Cock-cock- 
kick; my dears, the end of the world is not quite 
come ; but .1 assure you it is coming the day after 
to-morrow — cock.” But his wife had heard that so 
often that she knew all about it, and a little more. 


27 



And besides, she was the mother of a family, and 
had seven little poults to wash and feed every day ; 
and that made her very practical, and a little sharp- 
tempered ; so all she answered was : ‘ ‘ Kick-kick-kick- 
go and catch spiders, go and catch spiders-kick. ” 

So Tom went on and on, he hardly knew why; 
but he liked the great, wide, strange place, and the 
cool, fresh, bracing air. But he went more and more 
slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the 
ground grew very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf 
and springy heather he met great patches of flat 
limestone rock, just like ill-made pavements, with 
deep cracks between the stones and ledges, filled 
with ferns; so he had to hop from stone to stone, 
and now and then he slipped in between, and hurt 
his little bare toes, though they were tolerably tough 
ones; but still he would go on and up, he could not 
tell why. 

What would Tom have said if he had seen, walk- 
ing over the moor behind him, the very same Irish- 
woman who had taken his part upon the road? But 
whether it was that he looked too little behind him, 
or whether it was that she kept out of sight behind 
the rocks and knolls, he never saw her, though she 
saw him. 

And now he began to get a little hungry, and very 
thirsty ; for he had run a long way, and the sun had 
risen high in the heavens, and the rock was as hot as 
an oven, and the air danced reels over it, as it does 
over a limekiln, till everything round seemed quiver- 


28 


ing and melting in the glare. But he could see 
nothing to eat anywhere, and still less to drink. 

The heath was full of bilberries, and whinberries; 
but they were only in flower yet, for it was June. 
And as for water, who can And that on the top of a 
limestone rock? Now and then he passed by a deep 
swallow-hole, going down into the earth, as if it were 
the chimney of some dwarf’s house underground; 
and more than once, as he passed, he could hear 
water falling, trickling, tinkling, many, many feet 
below. How he longed to go down to it and cool 
his poor baked lips ! But brave little chimney-sweep 
as he was, he dared not climb down such chimneys 
as those. 

So he went on and on, till his head spun round 
with the heat, and he thought he heard church-bells 
ringing a long way off. 

“Ah ! ” he thought, “where there is a church there 
will be houses and people ; and perhaps someone will 
give me a bite and a sup.’’ So he set off again, to 
look for the church ; for he was sure that he heard 
the bells quite plain. And in a minute more, when 
he had looked round, he stopped again, and said, 
“Why, what a big place the world is!” 

And so it was ; for from the top of the mountain, 
he could see — what could he not see? 

Behind him, far below, was Harthover, and the 
dark woods, and the shining salmon river; and on his 
left, far below, was the town, and the smoking 
chimneys of the collieries ; and far, far away, the river 


29 


widened to the shining sea; and little white specks, 
which were ships, lay on its bosom. Before him lay, 
spread out like a map, great plains and farms and 
villages, amid dark knots of trees. They all seemed 
at his very feet ; but he had sense to see that they 
were long miles away. And to his right rose moor 
after moor, hill after hill, till they faded away, blue 
into blue sky. But between him and those moors, 
and really at his very feet, lay something, to which, 
as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go, for that 
was the place for him. 

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow 
and filled with wood ; but through the wood, hun- 
dreds of feet below him, he could see a clear stream 
glance. Oh, if he could only get down to that 
stream ! Then, by the stream, he saw the roof of a 
little cottage, and a little garden set out in squares 
and beds. And there was a tiny red thing moving 
in the garden, no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked 
down, he saw that it was a woman in a red petticoat. 
Ah ! perhaps she would give him something to eat. 
And there were the church-bells ringing again. 
Surely there must be a village down there. W ell, 
nobody would know him, or what had happened at 
the Place. The news could not have got there yet, 
even if Sir John had set all the policemen in the 
county after him; and he could get down there in 
five minutes. 

Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not 
having got thither; for he had come, without know- 


30 


ing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover; 
but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, 
for the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good 
thousand feet below. 

However, down he went, like a brave little man as 
he was, though he was footsore, and tired, and 
hungry, and thirsty; while the church-bells rang so 
loud, he began to think they must be inside his own 
head, and the river chimed and tinkled far below; 
and this was the song which it sang : 

Clear and cool, clear and cool, 

By laughing shallow and dreaming pool; 

Cool and clear, cool and clear, 

By shining shingle and foaming wear; 

Under the crag where the ouzel sings, 

And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings, 

Undefiled, for the undefiled; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child 

Dank and foul, dank and foul, 

By the smoky town in its murky cowl ; 

Foul and dank, foul and dank, 

By wharf and sewer and slimy bank ; 

Darker and darker the farther I go, 

Baser and baser the richer I grow; 

Who dare sport with the sin-defiled? 

Shrink from me, turn from me, mother and child. 

Strong and free, strong and free, 

The floodgates are open, away to the sea, 

Free and strong, free and strong, 

Cleansing my streams as I hurry along, 

To the golden sands and the leaping bar, 


31 


And the taintless tide that awaits me afar. 

As I lose myself in the infinite main, 

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again. 
Undefiled, for the undefiled ; 

Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 

So Tom went down; and all the while he 
saw the Irish- woman going down behind him. 


never 


32 


CHAPTER II 

“ And is there care in heaven ? and is there love, 

In heavenly spirits, to these creatures base 

That may compassion of their evils move ? 

There is: else much more wretched were the case 

Of men than beasts ...” 0 

— Spenser. 

A mile off and a thousand feet down. 

So Tom found it ; though it seemed as if he could 
have chucked a pebble on the back of the woman in 
the red petticoat who was weeding in the garden, or 
even across the dale to the rocks beyond. For the 
bottom of the valley was just one field broad, and on 
the other side ran the stream; and above it, gray 
crag, gray down, gray stair, gray moor, walled up to 
heaven. A quiet, rich, happy place ; a narrow crack 
cut into the deep earth ; so deep, and so out of the 
way, that the bad bogies can hardly find it out. The 
name of the place is Vendale ; and if you want to see 
it for yourself, you must go up into High Craven, 
and search from Bolland Forest north by Inglebor- 
ough to the Nine Standards and Cross Fell ; and if you 
have not found it, you must turn south, and search 
the Lake Mountains, down to Scaw Fell and the 
sea; and then, if you have not found it, you must 
go northward again by merry Carlisle, and search the 


33 


Cheviots all across, from Annan Water to Berwick 
Law ; and then, whether you have found Vendale or 
not, you will have found such a country, and such a 
people, as ought to make you proud of being a 
British boy. 

So Tom went to go. down ; and first he went down 
three hundred feet of steep heather, mixed with loose 
brown gritstone, as rough as a file ; which was not 
pleasant to his poor little heels, as he came bump, 
stump, jump, down the steep. And still he thought 
he could throw a stone down into the garden. 

Then he went down three hundred feet of lime- 
stone terraces, one below another, as straight as if a 
carpenter had ruled them with his ruler and then cut 
them out with his chisel. There was no heath there, 
but — 

First a little grass slope, covered with the prettiest 
flowers, rock-rose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil 
and all sorts of sweet herbs. 

Then bump down a two- foot step of limestone. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers. 

Then bump down a one-foot step. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty 
yards, as steep as the house-roof, where he had to 
slide down. 

Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and 
there he had to stop himself, and crawl along the 
edge to find a crack; for if he had rolled over, he 
would have rolled right into the old woman’s garden, 
and frightened her out of her wits. 


34 


Then, when he had found a dark, narrow crack, 
full of green-stalked fern, such as hangs in the basket 
in the drawing-room, and had crawled down through 
it, with knees and elbows, as he would down a chim- 
ney, there was another grass slope, and another step, 
and so on, till — oh, dear me ! I wish it were all over; 
and so did he. And yet he thought he could throw 
a stone into the old woman’s garden. 

At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; 
whitebeam with its great silver backed leaves, and 
mountain-ash, and oak; and below them cliff and 
crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of crown-ferns 
and wood-sedge ; while through the shrubs he could 
see the stream sparkling, and hear it murmur on the 
white pebbles. He did not know that it was three 
hundred feet below. 

You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking 
down : but Tom was not. He was a brave little chim- 
ney-sweep ; and when he found himself on the top of 
a high cliff, instead of sitting down and crying for his 
baba (though he never had any baba to cry for), he 
said, “Ah, this will just suit me!” though he was 
very tired ; and down he went, by stock and stone, 
sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had been 
born a jolly little black ape, with four hands instead 
of two. 

And all the while he never saw the Irish-woman 
coming down behind him. 

But he was getting terribly tired now. The burn- 
ing sun on the fells had sucked him up; but the 


35 


damp heat of the woody crag sucked him up still 
more ; and the perspiration ran out of the ends of his 
fingers and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had 
been for a whole year. But of course he dirtied 
everything terribly as he went. There has been a 
black smudge all down the crag ever since. And 
there have been more black beetles in Vendale since 
than ever were known before; all, of course, owing 
to Tom’s having blacked the original papa of them 
all, just as he was setting off to be married, with a 
sky-blue coat, and scarlet leggins, as smart as a gar- 
dener’s dog with a polyanthus in his mouth. 

At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was 
not the bottom — as people usually find when they 
are coming down a mountain. For at the foot of 
the crag, were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone of 
every size from that of your head to that of a stage 
coach; with holes between them full of sweet fern; 
and before Tom got through them, he was out in the 
bright sunshine again ; and then he felt, once for all 
and suddenly, as people generally do, that he was 
b-e-a-t, beat. 

You must expect to be beat a few times in your 
life, little man, if you live such a life as a man ought 
to live, let you be as strong and healthy as you may : 
and when you are, you will find it a very ugly feeling. 
I hope that that day you will have a stout staunch 
friend by you who is not beat ; for, if you have not, 
you had best lie where you are, and wait for better 
times, as poor Tom did. 


36 


He could not get on. The sun was burning, and 
yet he felt a chill all over. He was quite empty, 
and yet he felt quite sick. There were but two hun- 
dred yards of smooth pasture between him and the 
cottage, and yet he could not walk down it. He 
could hear the stream murmuring only one field 
beyond it, and yet it seemed to him as if it was a 
hundred miles off. 

He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over 
him, and the flies settled on his nose. I don’t know 
when he would have got up again, if the gnats and 
the midges had not taken compassion on him. But 
the gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ear, and 
the midges nibbled so at his hands and face, wherever 
they could find a place free from soot, that at last he 
woke up, and stumbled away, down over a low wall, 
and into a narrow road, and up to the cottage door. 

And a neat, pretty cottage it was, with clipped 
yew edges all round the garden, and yews inside, 
too, cut into peacocks and trumpets and teapots and 
all kinds of queer shapes. And out of the open door 
came a noise like that of the frogs on the Great A 
when they know it is going to be scorching hot to- 
morrow, — and how they know that I don’t know, 
and you don’t know, and nobody knows. 

He came slowly up to the open door, which was 
all hung round with clematis and roses; and then 
peeped in, half afraid. 

And there sat by the empty fire-place, which was 
filled with a pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old 


37 


woman that ever was seen, in her red petticoat, and 
short dimity bedgown, and clean white cap, with a 
black silk handkerchief over it, tied under her chin. 
At her feet sat the grandfather of all cats ; and op- 
posite her sat, on two benches, twelve or fourteen 
neat, rosy, chubby, little children, learning their 



“water,” said poor little tom, quite faint. 


Chris -cross- row ; and gabble enough they made 
about it. 

Such a pleasant cottage as it was, with a shiny 
clean stone floor, and curious old prints on the walls, 
and an old black oak sideboard full of bright pewter 


38 


and brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner, 
which began shouting as soon as Tom appeared: 
not that it was frightened at Tom, but that it was 
just eleven o’clock. 

All the children started at Tom’s dirty black figure ; 
the girls began to cry, the boys began to laugh, and 
all pointed at him rudely enough; but Tom was too 
tired to care for that. 

“ What art thou, and what dost thou want? ” cried 
the old dame. “ A chimney sweep ! Away with thee ! 
I’ll have no sweeps here.” 

“Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint. 

“ Water? There’s plenty of it i’ the beck,” she said, 
quite sharply. 

“But I can’t get there; I’m ’most clemmed with 
hunger and drought.” 

And Tom sank down upon the doorstep, and laid 
his head against the post. 

And the old dame looked at him through her spec- 
tacles one minute, and two, and three; and then she 
said, “He’s sick; and a bairn’s a bairn, sweep or 
none.” 

“ Water,” said Tom. 

“ God forgive me! ” and she put by her spectacles, 
and rose and came to Tom. “ Water’s bad for thee; 
I’ll give thee milk.” And she toddled off into the 
next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of 
bread. 

Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then 
looked up, revived. 


39 


“ Where did’st thou come from? ” asked the dame. 

“ Over the Fell, there,” said Tom, and pointed up 
into the sky. 

“ Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? 
Art sure thou art not lying? ” 

“Why should I?” said Tom, and leant his head 
against the post. 

“ And how got ye up there? ” 

“ I came over from the Place,” and Tom was so 
tired and desperate he had no heart or time to think 
of a story, so he told all the truth in a few words. 

“Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been 
stealing, then? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Bless thy little heart! and I’ll warrant not. Why, 
God’s guided the bairn because he was innocent! 
Away from the Place and over Harthover Fell; and 
down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard the like, if 
God hadn’t led him? Why dost thou not eat thy 
bread? ” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ It’s good enough, for I made it myself.” 

“ I can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his 
knees, and then asked, “ Is it Sunday? ” 

“No, then; why should it be? ” 

“ Because I hear the church-bells ringing so.” 

“ Bless thy pretty heart ! The bairn’s sick. Come 
wi’ me, and I’ll hap thee up somewhere. If thou wert 
a bit cleaner I’d put thee in my own bed, for the 
Lord’s sake. But come along here.” 


40 


But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and 
giddy that she had to help him and lead him. 

She put him in an outhouse upon soft sweet hay 
and an old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and 
she would come to him when school was over, in an 
hour’s time. And so she went in again, expecting 
Tom to fall asleep at once. 

But Tom did not fall asleep. 

Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about 
in the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he 
longed to go into the river and cool himself; and then 
he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the 
little white lady crying to him, “ Oh, you’re so dirty; 
go and be washed;” and then he heard the Irish- 
woman saying, “ Those that wish to be clean, clean 
they will be.” And then he heard the church -bells 
ring so loud, close to him, that he was sure it must be 
Sunday, in spite of w T hat the old dame had said; 
and he would go to church, and see what a church was 
like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fel- 
low, in all his life. But the people would never let 
him come in, all over soot and dirt like that. He must 
go to the river and wash first. And he said out loud 
again and again, though being half-asleep he did not 
know it, “ I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

And all of a sudden he found himself, not in the 
outhouse on the hay, hut in the middle of a meadow, 
over the road, with the stream before him, saying con- 
tinually, “ I must be clean, I must he clean.” He 
had got there on his own legs, between sleep and 


41 


awake, as children will often get out of bed, and go 
aboirfc the room, when they are not quite well. But he 
was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank of 
the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked 
into the clear, clear limestone water, with every pebble 
at the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver 
trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black 
face, and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool, 
cool, cool; and he said, “ I will be a fish; I will swim 
in the water; I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

So he pulled off his clothes in such haste that he 
tore some of them, which was easy enough with such 
ragged things. And he put his poor, hot, sore feet 
into the water; then his legs; and the farther he went 
in, the more the church -bells rang in his head. 

“ Ah,” said Tom, “ I must be quick and wash my- 
self ; the bells are ringing quite loud now ; and they 
will stop soon, and then the door will be shut, and I 
shall never be able to get in at all.” 

Tom was mistaken; for in England the church 
doors are left open all service time, for everybody who 
likes to come in, Churchman or Dissenter; ay, even 
if he were a Turk or a heathen; and if any man dared 
to put him out, as long as he behaved himself quietly, 
the good old English law would punish that man, as 
he deserved, for ordering any peaceable person out 
of God’s house, which belongs to all alike. But Tom 
did not know that, any more than he knew a great 
deal more which people ought to know. 


42 


And all the while he never saw the Irish- woman, not 
behind him this time, but before. 

For just before he came to the river side she had 
stept into the cool, clear water; and her shawl and 
petticoat floated off her, and the white water-lilies 
floated round her head, and the fairies of the stream 
came up from the bottom and bore her away and down 
upon their arms ; for she was the queen of them all, and 
perhaps of more besides. 

“ Where have you been? ” they asked her. 

“ I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and 
whispering sweet dreams into their ears ; opening cot- 
tage casements, to let out the stifling air ; coaxing little 
children away from the gutters and foul pools where 
fever breeds; turning women from the gin-shop door, 
and staying men’s hands as they were going to strike 
their wives ; doing all I can to help those who will not 
help themselves: and little enough that is, and weary 
work for me. But I have brought you a new little 
brother, and watched him safe all the way here.” 

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought 
that they had a little brother coming. 

“ But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know 
that you are here. He is but a savage now, and like 
the beasts which perish ; and from the beasts which per- 
ish he must learn. So you must not play with him, nor 
speak to him, nor let him see you ; but only keep him 
from being harmed.” 

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not 


43 


play with their new brother, but they always did what 
they were told. 

And their Queen floated away down the river ; and 
whither she went, thither she came. But all this, Tom, 
of course, never saw nor heard ; and perhaps if he had, 
it would have made little difference in the story ; for he 
was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean for 
once, ^th at he tumbled himself as quick as he could into 
the clear, cool water. 

And he had not been in it two minutes before he fell 
fast asleep, into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep that 
ever he had in his life ; and he dreamt about the green 
meadows by which he had walked that morning, and 
the tall elm trees and the sleeping cows;, and after that 
he dreamt of nothing at all. 

The reason for his falling into such a delightful 
sleep is very simple, and yet hardly anyone has found 
it out. It was merely that the fairies took him. 

Some people think there are no fairies. There 
must be fairies ; for this is a fairy tale : and how can one 
have a fairy tale if there are no fairies? 

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when school 
was over, to look at Tom : but there was no Tom there. 
She looked about for his footprints; but the ground 
was so hard that there was no slot, as they say in North 
Devon. So the old dame went in again quite sulky, 
thinking that little Tom had tricked her with a false 
story, and shammed ill, and then run away again. 

But she altered her mind next day. 

For when Sir John and the rest of them had run 


44 


themselves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back 
again, looking very foolish. 

And they looked more foolish still when Sir John 
heard more of the story from the nurse ; and more fool- 
ish still, again, when they heard the whole story from 
Miss Elbe, the little lady in white. All she had seen 
was a poor little black chimney-sweep, crying and sob- 
bing, and going to get up the chimney again. Of 
course she was very much frightened : and no wonder. 
But that was all. The boy had taken nothing in the 
room; by the mark of his little sooty feet they could 
see he had never been off the hearth-rug till the nurse 
had caught hold of him. It was all a mistake. 

Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised him 
five shillings if he would bring the boy quietly up to 
him, without beating him, so that he might be sure of 
the truth. For he took it for granted, and Grimes, 
too, that Tom had made his way home. 

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that evening ; 
and he went to the police to tell them to look out for 
the boy. But no Tom was heard of. As for his hav- 
ing gone over those great fells to Vendale, they no 
more dreamt of his doing that, than of his having 
gone to the moon ! 

So Mr. Grimes went up to Harthover next day 
with a very solemn face; but when he got there Sir 
John was over the hills and far away, and Mr. Grimes 
had to sit in the outer servants’ hall all day and drink 
strong ale to wash away his sorrows, and they were 
washed away long before Sir John came back. 


45 


For good Sir John had slept very badly that night, 
and he had said to his lady, “ My dear, the boy must 
have gone over into the grouse-moors and lost him- 
self, and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor 
little lad. But I know what I will do.” 

So at five in the morning, up he got, and into his 
bath, and into his shooting jacket and gaiters, and 
into the stable yard, like a fine old English gentle- 
man, with a face as red as a rose, and a hand as hard 
as a table, and a back as broad as a bullock’s ; and bade 
them bring his shooting pony, and the keeper to come 
on his pony, and the huntsman, and the first whip, and 
the second whip, and the underkeeper with the blood- 
hound in a leash — a great dog as tall as a calf, the color 
of a gravel walk, with mahogany ears and nose, and 
a throat like a church-bell. They took him up to the 
place where Tom had gone into the wood, and there 
the hound lifted up his mighty voice, and told them 
all he knew. Then he took them to the place where 
Tom had climbed the wall, and they shoved it down 
and all got through. 

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, and 
over the fells, step by step, very slowly; for the scent 
was a day old, you know, and very light from the heat 
and drought. But that was why cunning old Sir John 
had started at five in the morning. 

At last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, and 
there he bayed, and looked up into their faces, as much 
as to say, “ I tell you he is gone down here! ” 

They could hardly believe that Tom had gone so 


46 


far, and when they looked at that awful cliff, they 
could never believe he had dared to face it. But if 
the dog said so, it must be true. 

“ Heaven forgive us! ” said Sir John. “ If we find 
him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom/’ 

And he slapped his great hand upon his great thigh, 
and said: 

“ Who will go over Lewthwaite Crag, and see if 
that boy is alive? Oh, that I were twenty years 
younger, and I would go down myself! ” And so he 
would have done, as well as any sweep in the country. 
Then he said, “ Twenty pounds to the man who brings 
me that boy back alive! ” and as was his way, what he 
said he meant. 

Now among all the lot was a little groom-hoy, a 
very little groom indeed; and he was the very same 
who had ridden up the court, and told Tom to come 
to the Hall, and he said : 

“ Twenty pounds or none, I will go down over 
Lewthwaite Crag, if it’s only for the poor boy’s sake. 
For he was as civil spoken a little chap as ever climbed 
a flue.” 

So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went: a very 
smart groom he was at the top, and a very shabby one 
at the bottom; for he tore his gaiters, and he tore his 
breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst his braces, 
and he burst his boots, and he lost his hat, and what 
was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, which he prized 
very much, for it was gold ; but he never saw anything 
of Tom. 


47 


And all the while Sir John and the. rest were riding 
round full three miles to the right, and back again, to 
get into Yendale, and to the foot of the crag. 

When they came to the old dame’s school, all the 
children came out to see. And the old dame came out, 
too; and when she saw Sir John, she curtsied very 
low, for she was a tenant of his. 

“ Well, dame, and how are you? ” said Sir John. 

“ Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harth- 
over,” said she — she didn’t call him Sir John, but only 
Harthover, for that is the fashion in the North coun- 
try — “ and welcome into Vendale. But you’re no’ 
hunting the fox this time of the year? ” 

“ I am hunting, and strange game, too,” he said. 

“ Blessings on your heart, and what makes you look 
so sad the morn? ” 

“ I’m looking for a child, a chimney-sweep, that is 
run away.” 

“ Oh, Harthover, Harthover,” says she, “ ye were 
always a just man and a merciful; and ye’ll no harm 
the poor little lad if I give you tidings of him? ” 

“ Not I, not I, dame. I’m afraid we’ve hunted him 
out of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the 
hound has brought him to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, 
and — ” 

Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without let- 
ting him finish his story: 

“ So he told me the truth after all, poor little dear! 
Ah, first thoughts are best, and a body’s heart will 


48 


guide them right, if they’ll hut hearken to it.” And 
then she told Sir John all. 

“ Bring the dog here, and lay him on,” said Sir 
J ohn, without another word, and he set his teeth very 
hard. 

And the dog opened at once ; and went away at the 
back of the cottage, over the road and over the mead- 
ow, and through a bit of alder copse ; and there, upon 
a bit of alder stump, they saw Tom’s clothes lying. 
And then they knew as much about it all as there was 
any need to know. 

And Tom? 

Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this 
wonderful story. Tom, when he woke, for of course he 
woke — children always wake as soon as they have slept 
exactly as long as is good for them — found himself 
swimming about in the stream, being about four inches 
long, and having a set of exterior gills, which he mis- 
took for a lace frill, till he pulled at them, and found 
he hurt himself, and made up his mind that they were 
part of himself, and best left alone. 

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water- 
baby. 

A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby? 
Perhaps not. That is why this story was written. 
And don’t you know this is a fairy tale, and all fun 
and pretense ; and that you are not to believe one word 
of it, even if it is true ? 

But at all events, so it happened to Tom. And, 
therefore, the keeper, and the groom, and Sir John 


49 


made a great mistake, and were very unhappy (Sir 
John at least), without any reason, when they found 
a black thing in the water, and said it was Tom’s body, 
and that he had been drowned. They were utterly 
mistaken. Tom was quite alive and cleaner and mer- 
rier than he had ever been. The fairies had washed 
him, you see, in the swift river, so thoroughly, that not 
only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had been 
washed quite off him, and the pretty little real Tom 
rtas washed out of the inside of it, and swam away. 

But good Sir John did not understand all this, and 
he took it into his head that Tom was drowned. When 
they looked into the empty pockets of his shell, and 
found no jewels there, nor money — nothing but three 
marbles, and a brass button with a string to it — then 
Sir John did something as like crying as ever he did 
in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he 
need have done. So he cried, and the groom-boy 
cried, and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and 
the little girl cried, and the dairy-maid cried, and the 
old. nurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), and 
my lady cried. 

But the keeper did not cry, though he had been 
so good-natured to Tom the morning before; and 
Grimes did not cry, for Sir John gave him ten pounds, 
and he drank it all in a week. Sir John sent far and 
wide to find Tom’s mother and father; but he might 
have looked till Doomsday for them, for one was dead 
and the other was in Botany Bay. 

And the little girl would not play with her dolls 


50 


for a whole week, and never forgot poor little Tom. 
And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over 
Tom’s shell in the little churchyard at Vendale, and 
the old dame decked it with garlands every Sunday, 
till she grew so old she could not stir; then the little 
children decked it for her. And always she sang an 
old, old song as she sat spinning what she called her 
wedding dress. And these are the words of it: 

When all the world is young, lad. 

And all the trees are green. 

And every goose a swan, lad, 

And every lass a queen; 

Then hey for boot and horse, lad. 

And round the world away — 

Young blood must have its course, lad. 

And every dog his day. 

When all the world is old, lad, 

And all the trees are brown; 

And all the sport is stale, lad. 

And all the wheels run down; 

Creep home and take your place there. 

The spent and maimed among: 

God grant you find one face there 
You loved when all was young. 

Those are the words : but they are only the body of 
it: the soul of the song was the dear old woman’s sweet 
face, and the sweet old air to which she sang: and that 
alas! one cannot put on paper. And at last she grew 
so stiff and lame, that the angels were forced to carry 
her: and they helped her on with her wedding dress, 


51 


and carried her up over Harthover Fells, and a long 
way beyond that, too : and there was a new school mis- 
tress at Vendale. 

And all the while Tom was swimming about in the 
river, with a pretty little lace collar of gills about his 
neck, as lively as a grig, and as clean as a fresh-run 
salmon. 

Now, if you don’t like my story, then go to the 
school-room and learn your multiplication-table, and 
see if you like that better. 

“ He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast; 

He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small: 

For the dear God who loveth us. 

He made and loveth all.” 

— Coleridge. 


52 


CHAPTER III 


Tom was now quite amphibious. You do not know 
what that means? Our ignorant ancestors supposed 
an amphibious animal to be compounded of a fish and 
a beast; which, therefore, like the hippopotamus, can’t 
live on land, and dies in the water. 

However that may be, Tom was amphibious; and 
what is better still, he was clean. For the first time in 
his life, he felt how comfortable it was to have nothing 
on but himself. But he only enjoyed it: he did not 
think about it; just as you enjoy life and health, and 
yet never think about being alive and healthy. 

He did not remember having ever been dirty. In- 
deed, he did not remember any of his old troubles, 
being tired, or hungry, or beaten, or sent up dark 
chimneys. Since that sweet sleep, he had forgotten 
all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the 
little w T hite girl, and in a word, all that had happened 
to him when he lived before, and what was best of all, 
he had forgotten all the bad words he had learned from 
Grimes, and the rude boys with whom he used to play. 

Tom was very happy in the water. He had been 
sadly overworked in the land-world; and so now, to 


53 


make up for that, he had nothing* but holidays in the 
water-world for a long, long time to come. 

He had nothing to do but enjoy himself, and look at 
all the pretty things which are to be seen in the cool, 
clear water- world, where the sun is never too hot, and 
the frost is never too cold. 

And what did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; 
or water gruel, and water-milk. But we do not know 
what one-tenth of the water-things eat, so we are not 
answerable for the water-babies. 

Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water- 
ways, looking at the crickets which ran in and out 
among the stones, as rabbits do on land : or he climbed 
over ledges of rock and saw the sandpipers hanging 
in thousands, with every one of them a pretty little 
head and legs peeping out : or he went into a corner 
and watched the caddises eating dead sticks as greedily 
as you would eat plum-pudding, and building their 
houses with silk and glue. 

Very fanciful ladies they were; none of them would 
keep to the same materials for a day. One would be- 
gin with some pebbles ; then she would stick on a piece 
of green wood; then she found a shell, and stuck it on, 
too ; and the poor shell was alive, and did not like at 
all being taken to build houses with, but the caddis 
did not let him have any voice in the matter, being 
rude and selfish, as vain people are apt to be ; then she 
stuck on a piece of rotten wood, and then a very smart 
pink stone, and so on, till she was patched all over like 
an Irishman’s coat. Then she found a long straw, five 


54 


times as long as herself, and said, “ Hurrah! my sis- 
ter has a tail, and I’ll have one, too! ” and she stuck 
it on her back and marched about with it quite proud, 
though it was very inconvenient, indeed. And, at that, 
tails became all the fashion among the caddis baits in 
that pool, and they all toddled about with long straws 
sticking out behind, getting between each other’s legs, 
and tumbling over each other, and looking so ridicu- 
lous, that Tom laughed at them till he cried. But they 
were quite right, for people must always follow the 
fashion. 

Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach; and 
there he saw the water-forests. They would have 
looked to you only little woods; but Tom, you must 
remember, was so little that everything looked a hun- 
dred times as big to him as it does to you, just as 
things do to a minnow, who sees and catches the little 
water-creatures which you can only see in a micro- 
scope. 

And in the water-forests he saw the water-monkeys 
and the water-squirrels (they all had six legs, though; 
everything, almost, has six legs in the water, except 
efts and water-babies) ; and nimbly enough they ran 
among the branches. There were water-flowers there, 
too, in thousands; and Tom tried to pick them; but 
as soon as he touched them, they drew themselves in 
and turned into knots of jelly; and then Tom saw that 
they were all alive — bells and stars and wheels arid 
flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colors ; and all alive 
and busy, just as Tom was. So now he found that 


55 


there was a great deal more in the world than he had 
fancied at first sight. 

There was one wonderful little fellow, too, who 
peeped out of the top of a house made of round bricks. 
He had two big wheels, and one little one, all over 
teeth, spinning round and round like the wheels in a 
thrashing-machine ; and Tom stood and stared at him, 
to see what he was going to make with his machinery. 
And what do you suppose he was doing? Brick-mak- 
ing. With his two big wheels he swept together all 
the mud that was floating in the water: all that was 
nice in it he put into his stomach and ate ; and all the 
mud he put into the little wheel on his breast, which was 
really a round hole set with teeth ; and there he spun 
it into a neat, hard, round brick; and then he took 
it out and stuck it on the top of his house-wall, and set 
to work to make another. Now was he not a clever 
little fellow? 

Tom thought so, but when he wanted to talk to him, 
the brickmaker was much too busy and proud of his 
work to take notice of him. 

Now you must know that all things under the water 
talk; only not such language as ours; but such as 
horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds talk to each 
other; and Tom soon learned to understand them and 
talk to them ; so that he might have had very pleasant 
company if he had only been a good boy. But I am 
sorry to say, he was too like some other little boys, 
very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for 
mere sport. Some people say that boys cannot help 


56 


it; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are all 
originally descended from beasts of prey. But 
whether it is nature or not, little boys can help it, and 
must help it. For if they have naughty, low mis- 
chievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that 
is no reason why they should give way to these tricks 
like monkeys, who know no better. And therefore 
they must not torment dumb creatures ; for if they do, 
a certain old lady who is coming will surely give them 
exactly what they deserve. 

But Tom did not know that; and he pecked and 
howked the poor water-things about sadly, till they 
were all afraid of him, and got out of his way, or crept 
into their shells, so he had no one to speak to or play 
with. 

The water-fairies, of course, were very sorry to see 
him so unhappy, and longed to take him, and tell him 
how naughty he was, and teach him to be good, and 
to play and romp with him too; but they had been 
forbidden to do that. Tom had to learn his lesson for 
himself by sound and sharp experience, as many an- 
other foolish person has to do, though there may be a 
kind heart yearning over them all the while, and long- 
ing to teach them what they can only teach themselves. 

At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to 
peep out of its house: but its house door was shut. 
He had never seen a caddis with a house door before: 
so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but 
pull it open, to see what the poor lady was doing inside. 
What a shame ! How should you like to have any one 


57 


breaking your bedroom door in, to see how you looked 
when you were in bed? So Tom broke to pieces the 
door, which was the prettiest little grating of silk, 
stuck all over with shining bits of crystal: and when 
he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, and it 
had turned into just the shape of a bird’s. 

But when Tom spoke to her she could not answer ; 
for her mouth and face were tied up tight in a new 
night-cap of neat pink silk. However, if she didn’t 
answer, all the other caddises did; for they held up 
their hands and shrieked, “ Oh, you nasty, horrid boy; 
there you are at it again! And she had just laid her- 
self up for a fortnight’s sleep, and then she would have 
come out with such beautiful wings, and flown about, 
and laid such lots of eggs; and now you have broken 
her door, and she can’t mend it because her mouth is 
tied up for a fortnight, and she will die. Who sent 
you here to worry us out of our lives? ” 

So Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed 
of himself, and felt all the naughtier ; as little boys do 
when they have done wrong and won’t say so. 

Then he came to a pool full of trout, and began tor- 
menting them, and trying to catch them: but they 
slipped through his fingers, and jumped clean out of 
the water in their fright. But as Tom chased them he 
came close to a great dark cover under an alder root, 
and out flounced a huge old brown trout ten times 
as big as he was, and ran right against him, and 
knocked all the breath out of his body; and I don’t 
know which was the more frightened of the two. 


58 


Then he went on sulky and lonely, as he deserved 
to be ; and under a bank he saw a very ugly, dirty crea- 
ture sitting, about half as big as himself ; which had six 
legs, and a big stomach, and a most ridiculous head 
with two great eyes and a face just like a donkey’s. 

“ Oh,” said Tom, “ you are an ugly fellow to be 
sure! ” and he began making faces at him; and put his 
nose close to him, and halloed at him, like a very rude 
boy. 

When, hey presto ; all the thing’s donkey-face came 
off in a moment, and out popped a long arm with a 
pair of pincers at the end of it, and caught Tom by 
the nose. It did not hurt much ; but it held him quite 
tight. 

“ Yah, ah! Oh, let me go! ” cried Tom. 

“ Then let me go,” said the creature. 4 4 1 want to be 
quiet. I want to split.” 

Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go. 

44 Why do you want to split? ” said Tom. 

44 Because my brothers and sisters have all split, and 
turned into beautiful creatures with wings ; and I want 
to split, too. Don’t speak to me. I am sure I shall 
split. I will split ! ” 

Tom stood still, and watched him. And he swelled 
himself, and puffed, and stretched himself out stiff, 
and at last — crack, puff, bang — he.opened all down his 
back, and then up to the top of his head. 

And out of his inside came the most slender, ele- 
gant, soft creature, as soft and smooth as Tom: but 
very pale and weak, like a little child who has been ill 


59 


a long time in a dark room. It moved its legs very 
feebly, and then it began walking slowly up a grass 
stem to the top of the water. 

Tom was so astonished that he never said a word: 
but he stared with all his eyes. And he went up to the 
top of the water, too, and peeped out to see what would 
happen. 

And as the creature sat in the warm bright sun, a 
wonderful change came over it. It grew strong and 
firm ; the most lovely colors began to show on its body, 
blue and yellow and black, spots and bars and rings ; 
out of its back rose four great wings of bright brown 
gauze; and its eyes grew so large that they filled all 
its head, and shone like ten thousand diamonds. 

“ Oh, you beautiful creature !” said Tom; and he 
put out his hand to catch it. 

But the creature whirred up into the air, and hung 
poised on its wings a moment, and then settled down 
again by Tom quite fearless. “ No,” it said; “ you 
cannot catch me. I am a dragon-fly now, and the king 
of all flies ; and I shall dance in the sunshine, and hawk 
over the river, and catch gnats, and have a beautiful 
wife like myself. I know what I shall do. Hurrah! ” 
And he flew away into the air, and began catching 
gnats. 

“ Oh, come back, come back,” cried Tom, “ you 
beautiful creature ! I have no one to play with, and I 
am so lonely here. If you will come back I will never 
try to catch you.” 

“ I don’t care whether you* do or not,” said the 


60 


dragon-fly; “for you can’t. But when I have had 
my dinner, and looked about this pretty place, I will 
come back and have a little chat about all I have seen 
in my travels. Why what a huge tree this is, and what 
huge leaves on it! ” 



**l AM A DRAGON-FLY NOW . . .” 


It was only a big dock: but you know the dragon- 
fly had never seen any but little water-trees ; starwort, 
and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like; so it 
did look very big to him. Besides, he was very short- 
sighted, as all dragon-flies are; and never could see 
a yard beyond his nose. 


61 



The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away 
with Tom. He was a little conceited about his fine 
colors and large wings; but you know, he had been a 
very poor, dirty, ugly creature all his life before; so 
there were great excuses for him. He was very fond 
of talking about all the wonderful things he saw in 
the trees and meadows ; and Tom liked to listen to him, 
for he had forgotten all about them. So in a little 
while they became great friends. 

And I am glad to say that Tom learned such a les- 
son that day that he did not torment creatures for a 
long time after. And then the caddises grew quite 
tame, and used to tell him strange stories about the 
way they built their houses, and changed their skins, 
and turned at last into winged flies; till Tom began 
to long to change his skin and have wings like them 
some day. 

And the trout and he made up (for trout very soon 
forget if they have been frightened and hurt). So 
Tom used to play with them at hare and hounds, and 
great fun they had ; and he used to try to leap out of 
the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower 
came on ; but somehow he could never manage it. He 
liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, as 
they sailed round and round under the shadows of the 
great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, 
and the green caterpillars let themselves down from 
the boughs by silk ropes for no reason at all ; and then 
changed their foolish minds for no reason at all either; 


62 


and hauled themselves up again into the tree, rolling 
up the rope in a ball between their paws. 

And very often Tom caught them just as they 
touched the water ; and caught the alder-flies, and the 
caperers, and the cock-tailed duns, and spinners, yel- 
low and brown and claret and gray, and gave them 
to his friends the trout. Perhaps he was not quite 
kind to the flies ; but one must do a good turn for one’s 
friends when one can. 

And at last he gave up catching even the flies ; for 
he made the acquaintance of one by accident and found 
him a very merry little fellow. And this was the way 
it happened ; and it is all quite true. 

He was basking at the top of the water one hot day 
in July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he 
saw a new sort, a dark gray little fellow with a brown 
head. He was a very little fellow indeed ; but he made 
the most of himself, as people ought to do. He cocked 
up his head, and he cocked up his wings, and he cocked 
up his tail, and he cocked up the two whisks at his tail- 
end, and, in short, he looked the cockiest little man of 
all little men. And so he proved to be; for instead of 
getting away, he hopped upon Tom’s finger, and sat 
there as bold as nine tailors; and he cried out in the 
tiniest, shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard: 

“ Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don’t want it 
yet.” 

“ Want what? ” said Tom, quite taken back by his 
impudence. 

“ Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out 


63 


for me to sit on. I must go and see after my wife for a 
few minutes. Dear me! what a troublesome business 
a family is! ” (though the idle little rogue did nothing 
at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the eggs by her- 
self). “ When I come back, I shall be glad of it, if 
you will be so good as to keep it sticking out just so,” 
and off he flew. 

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage ; and 
still more so, when, in five minutes he came back, and 
said, “Ah, you were tired of waiting? Well, your 
other leg will do as well.” 

And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and 
began chatting away in his squeaky voice. 

“ So you live under the water? It’s a low place. I 
lived there for some time; and was very shabby and 
dirty. But I didn’t choose that should last. So I 
turned respectable, and came up to the top, and put 
on this gray suit. It’s a very business-like suit, you 
think, don’t you? ” 

“ Very neat and quiet indeed,” said Tom. 

“ Yes, one must be quiet and neat and respectable 
and all that sort of thing, when one becomes a family 
man. But I’m tired of it, that’s the truth. I’ve done 
quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, to 
last me all my life. So I shall put on a ball dress, and 
go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and 
have a dance or two. Why shouldn’t one be jolly if 
one can? ” 

“ And what will become of your wife? ” 

“ Oh, she is a very plain, stupid creature, and that’s 


64 


the truth ; and thinks about nothing but eggs. If she 
chooses to come, why she may; and if not, why I go 
without her — and here I go.” 

And as he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then 
quite white. 

“ Why you’re ill! ” said Tom. But he did not an- 
swer. 

“ You’re dead,” said Tom, looking at him as he 
stood on his knee as white as a ghost. 

“ No, I ain’t!” answered a little squeaking voice 
over his head. “ This is me up here, in my ball-dress; 
and that’s my skin. Ha, ha! you could not do such 
a trick as that! ” 

And no more Tom could. For the little rogue had 
jumped clean out of his own skin, and left it stand- 
ing on Tom’s knee, eyes, wings, legs and tail, exactly 
as if it had been alive. 

“ Ha, ha! ” he said, and he jerked and skipped up 
and down, never stopping an instant, just as if he had 
the St. Vitus’s dance. “ Ain’t I a pretty fellow now? ” 

And so he was ; for his body was white, and his tail 
orange, and his eyes all the colors of a peacock’s tail. 
And what was the oddest of all, the whisks at the end 
of his tail had grown five times as long as they had 
been before. 

“Ah!” said he, “now I will see the gay world. 
My living won’t cost me much, for I have no mouth, 
you see, and no inside; so I can never be hungry nor 
have the stomach-ache, neither.” 

No more he had. He had grown as dry and hard 


65 


and empty as a quill, as such silly shallow-hearted fel- 
lows deserve to grow. 

But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he 
was quite proud of it, and began flirting and flipping 
up and down, and singing: 

“ My wife shall dance, and I shall sing, 

So merrily pass the day; 

For I hold it for quite the wisest thing, 

To drive dull care away.” 

And he danced up and down for three days and 
three nights, till he grew so tired, that he tumbled into 
the water and floated down. But what became of him, 
Tom never knew, and he himself never minded; for 
Tom heard him singing to the last, as he floated 
down — 

“ To drive dull care away — ay — ay! ” 

And if he did not care, why nobody else cared either. 

But one day Tom had a new adventure. He was 
sitting on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend the drag- 
on-fly, watching the gnats dance. The dragon-fly 
had eaten as many as he wanted, and was sitting quite 
still and sleepy, for it was very hot and bright. The 
gnats ( who did not care the least for their poor broth- 
er’s death), danced a foot over his head quite hap- 
pily, and a large black fly settled within an inch of his 
nose, and began washing his own face and combing his 
hair with his paws: but the dragon-fly never stirred, 
and kept on chatting to Tom about the times when 
he lived under the water. 


66 


Suddenly, Tom heard the strangest noise up the 
stream ; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and 
squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two stock- 
doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, 
and left them there to settle themselves and make 
music. 

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as 
strange as the noise ; a great ball rolling over and over 
down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown 
fur, and the next of shining glass; and yet it was not 
a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away 
in several pieces, and then it joined again; and all the 
while the noise came out of it louder and louder. 

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be: but, of 
course, with his short sight, he could not even see it, 
though it was not ten yards away. So he took the 
neatest little header into the water, and started off 
to see for himself; and, when he came near, the ball 
turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many 
times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, 
and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, 
and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, 
in the most charming fashion that was ever seen. And 
if you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological 
Gardens, and then say, if otters at play in the water 
are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you 
ever saw. 

But when the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted 
out from the rest, and cried in the water-language, 
sharply enough, “ Quick, children, here is something to 


67 


eat, indeed ! ” and came at poor Tom, showing such a 
wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth in 
a very grinning mouth, that Tom, who thought her 
very handsome, said to himself, “ Handsome is that 
handsome does/’ and slipped in between the water-lily 
roots as fast as he could, and then turned round and 
made faces at her. 

“ Come out,” said the wicked old otter, “or it will 
be worse for you.” 

But Tom looked at her from between two thick 
roots, and shook them with all his might, making hor- 
rible faces all the while, just as he used to grin through 
the railings at the old women, when he lived before. 
It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, 
Tom had not finished his education yet. 

“ Come away, children,” said the otter in disgust, 
“ it is not worth eating, after all. It is only a nasty 
eft, which nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in 
the pond.” 

“ I am not an eft! ” said Tom; “ efts have tails.” 

“You are an eft,” said the otter, very positively; 
“I see your two hands quite plain, and I know you 
have a tail.” 

“ I tell you I have not,” said Tom. “ Look here! ” 
and he turned his pretty little self quite round; and 
sure enough, he had no more tail than you. 

The otter might have got out of it by saying that 
Tom was a frog: but, like a great many other people, 
when she had once said a thing she stood to it, right 
or wrong; so she answered: 


68 


“ I say you are an eft, and therefore you are, and 
not fit food for gentlefolk like me and my children. 
You may stay there till the salmon eat you” — (she 
knew the salmon would not, but she wanted to frighten 
poor Tom) — “ Ha! Ha! they will eat you, and we 
will eat them! ” and the otter laughed such a wicked 
cruel laugh — as you may hear them do sometimes ; and 
the first time you hear it you will probably think it is 
bogies. 

. “ What are salmon? ” said Tom. 

“ Fish, you eft, great fish, nice fish to eat. They 
are the lords of the fish, and we are lords of the 
salmon;” and she laughed again. “We hunt them 
up and down the pools, and drive them up into a 
corner, the silly things; they are so proud, and bully 
the little trout, and the minnows, till they see us com- 
ing, and then they are so meek all at once; and we 
catch them, but we disdain to eat them all; we just 
bite out their soft throats and suck their sweet juice — 
Oh, so good!” — (and she licked her wicked lips) — 
“ and then throw them away, and go and catch an- 
other. They are coming soon, children, coming soon ; 
I can smell the rain coming off the sea, and then 
hurrah for a freshet, and salmon, and plenty of eating 
all day long.” 

And the otter grew so proud that she turned head 
over heels twice, and then stood upright half out of 
the water, grinning like a Cheshire cat. 

“And where do they come from?” asked Tom, 


69 


who kept himself very close, for he was considerably 
frightened. 

“ Out of the sea, eft, the great wide sea, where they 
might stay and be safe if they liked. But out of the 
sea the silly things come, into the great river down 
below, and we come up to watch for them; and when 
they go down again we go down and follow them. And 
there we fish for the bass and pollock, and have jolly 
days along the shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, 
and sleep snug in the warm dry crags. All, that is 
a merry life, too, children, if it were not for those hor- 
rid men.” 

4 4 What are men? ” asked Tom: but somehow he 
seemed to know before he asked. 

“ Two-legged things, eft : and now I come to look 
at you, they are actually something like you, if you 
had not a tail ” — (she was determined that Tom should 
have a tail )— 4 4 only a great deal bigger, worse luck 
for us; and they catch the fish with hooks and lines 
which get into our feet sometimes, and set pots along 
the rocks to catch lobsters. They speared my poor, 
dear husband as he went out to find something for me 
to eat. I was laid up among the crags then, and we 
were very low in the world, for the sea was so rough 
that no fish would come ashore. But they speared 
him, poor fellow, and I saw them carrying him away 
upon a pole. Ah, he lost his life for your sakes, my 
children, poor, dear, obedient creature that he was.” 

And the otter grew so sentimental, that she sailed 
solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no 


70 


more for that time. And lucky it was for her that she 
did so; for no sooner had she gone, than down the 
bank came seven rough little terrier dogs, snuffing 
and yapping, and grubbing and splashing, in full cry 
after the otter. Tom hid among the water-lilies till 
they were gone ; for he could not guess that they were 
the water-fairies come to help him. 

But he could not help thinking of what the otter 
had said about the great river and the broad sea. And, 
as he thought, he longed to go and see them. He 
could not tell why, but the more he thought, the more 
he grew discontented with the narrow little stream 
in which he lived, and all his companions there; and 
he wanted to get out into the wide, wide world, and 
enjoy all the sights of which he was sure it was full. 

And once he set off to go down the stream. But 
the stream was very low; and when he came to the 
shallows he could not keep under water, for there was 
no water left to keep under. So the sun burned his 
back and made him sick; and he went back again 
and lay quiet in the pool for a whole week more. 

And then on the evening of a very hot day, he saw 
a sight. He had been very stupid all day, and so 
had the trout; for they would not move an inch to 
take a fly, though there were thousands on the water, 
hut they lay dozing at the bottom under the shade of 
the stones ; and Tom lay dozing, too, and was glad to 
cuddle their smooth, cool sides, for the water was 
quite warm and unpleasant. 

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and 


71 


Tom looked up and saw a blanket of black clouds 
lying right across the valley above his head, resting 
on the crags right and left. He felt not quite fright- 
ened, but very still; for everything was still. There 
was not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be 
heard; and next a few great drops of rain fell plop 
into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made 
him pop his head down quickly enough. 

And then the thunder roared, and the lightning 
flashed, and leapt across Vendale and back again, 
from cloud to cloud, and cliff to cliff, till the very 
rocks in the stream seemed to shake: and Tom looked 
up at it through the water, and thought it the finest 
thing he ever saw in his life. 

But out of the water he dared not put his head: for 
the rain came down by the bucketsful, and the hail 
hammered like shot on the stream, and churned it into 
foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, 
higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of 
beetles, and sticks, and straws, and worms, and addle- 
eggs, and wood-lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, 
and this and that and the other — enough to fill nine 
museums. 

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and 
hid behind a rock. But the trout did not; for out 
they rushed from among the stones, and began gob- 
bling the beetles and leeches in the most greedy and 
quarrelsome way, and swimming about with great 
worms hanging from their mouths, tugging and kick- 
ing to get them away from each other. 


72 


And now, by the flashes of lightning, Tom saw a 
new sight — all the bottom of the stream alive with 
great eels, turning and twisting along, all down stream 
and away. They had been hiding for weeks past in 
the cracks of the rocks, and in burrows in the mud; 
and Tom had hardly ever seen them, except now and 
then at night: but now they were all out, and went 
hurrying past him, so fiercely and wildly that he was 
quite frightened. And as they hurried past he could 
hear them say to each other, “ We must run, we must 
run. What a jolly thunderstorm! Down to the sea, 
down to the sea ! ” 

And then the otter came by with all her brood, 
twining and sweeping along as fast as the eels them- 
selves; and she spied Tom as she came by, and said: 

“ Now is your time, eft, if you want to see the 
world. Come along, children, never mind those nasty 
* eels: we shall breakfast on salmon to-morrow. Down 
to the sea, down to the sea! ” 

Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by 
the light of it — in the thousandth part of a second" 
they were gone — but he had seen them, he was quite 
certain of it — Three beautiful little white girls, with 
their arms twined round each other’s necks, floating 
down the torrent, as they sang, “ Down to the sea, 
down to the sea ! ” 

“ Oh, stay! Wait for me!” cried Tom; but they 
were gone: yet he could hear their voices clear and 
sweet through the roar of thunder and water and wind, 


73 


singing as they died away, “ Down to the sea, down 
to the sea! ” 

“Down to the sea? ” said Tom; “everything is 
going to the sea, and I will go too. Good-bye, trout.” 
But the trout were so busy gobbling worms, that they 
never turned to answer him; so that Tom was spared 
the pain of bidding them farewell. 

And now, down the rushing stream, guided by the 
bright flashes of the storm; past tall birch-fringed 
rocks, which shone out one moment as clear as day, and 
the next were as dark as night; past dark hovers 
under swirling banks, from which great trout rushed 
out on Tom, thinking him to be good to eat, and 
turned back sulkily, for the fairies sent them home 
again with a tremendous scolding, for daring to med- 
dle with a water-baby; and on through narrow straits 
and roaring cataracts, where Tom was deafened and 
blinded for a moment by the rushing waters; along 
deep reaches, where the white water-lilies tossed and * 
flapped beneath the wind and hail; past sleeping vil- 
lages; under dark bridge-arches, and away and away 
to the sea. And Tom could not stop, and did not care 
to stop; he would see the great world below, and the 
salmon, and the breakers, and the wide, wide sea. 

And when the daylight came, Tom found himself 
out in the salmon river. And after a while he came 
to a place where the river spread out into broad 
shallow reaches, so wide that little Tom, as he put his 
head out of the water, could hardly see across. 

And there he stopped : he got a little frightened. 


74 


“ This must be the sea,” he thought. “ What a 
wide place it is! If I go into it I shall surely lose 
my way, or some strange thing will bite me. I will 
stop here and look about for the otter, or the eels, 
or someone to tell me where I shall go.” 

So he went back a little way, and crept into a 
crack of the rock, just where the river opened out into 
the wide shallows, and watched for someone to tell 
him his way: but the otter and the eels were gone on 
miles and miles down the stream. 

There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite 
tired with his night’s journey; and, when he awoke, 
the stream was clearing to a beautiful clear amber 
hue, though it was still very high. And after a while he 
saw a sight which made him jump up: for he knew 
in a moment it was one of the things he had come to 
look for. 

Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, 
and a hundred times as big as Tom, sculling up the 
stream past him, as easily as Tom had sculled down. 

Such a fish! shining silver from head to tail, and 
here and there a crimson dot; with a grand hooked 
nose, and a grand curling lip, and a grand bright eye, 
looking round him as proudly as a king, and sur- 
veying the water right and left as if it all belonged to 
him. Surely he must be the salmon, the king of all 
fish. 

Tom was so frightened that he longed to creep 
into a hole; but he need not have been; for salmon 
are all true gentlemen and, like true gentlemen, they 




75 


look noble and proud enough, and yet, like true gen- 
tlemen, they never harm anyone, or quarrel, but go 
about their own business, and leave rude fellows to 
themselves. 

The salmon looked at him, full in the face, and then 
went on without minding him, with a swish or two of 
his tail which made the stream boil again. And in a 
few minutes came another, and then four or five, and 
so on; and all passed Tom, rushing and plunging up 
the cataract with strong strokes of their silver tails, 
now and then leaping clean out of the water and up 
over a rock, shining gloriously for a moment in the 
bright sun ; while Tom was so delighted that he could 
have watched them all day long. 

And at last one came up bigger than all the rest; 
but he came slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and 
seemed very anxious and busy. And Tom saw that 
he was helping another salmon, an especially hand- 
some one, who had not a single spot upon it, but was 
clothed in pure silver from nose to tail. 

“ My dear,” said the great fish to his companion, 
“ you really look dreadfully tired, and you must not 
over-exert yourself at first. Do rest yourself behind 
this rock! ” and he shoved her gently with his nose, 
to the rock where Tom sat. 

You must know that this was the salmon’s wife. 
F or salmon, like other true gentlemen, always choose 
their lady, and love her, and are true to her, and take 
care of her, and work for her, and fight for her, as 
every true gentleman ought; and are not like vulgar 




76 


chub, and roach and pike, who have no high feelings, 
and take no care of their wives. 

Then he saw Tom, and looked at him very fiercely 
one moment, as if he were going to bite him. 

“ What do you want here? ” he said, very fiercely. 

“ Oh, don’t hurt me! ” cried Tom. “ I only want 
to look at you; you are so handsome.” 

4 4 Ah? ” said the salmon, very statelily, but very civ- 
illy. 44 I really beg your pardon; I see what you 
are, my little dear. I have met one or two creatures 
like you before, and found them very agreeable and 
well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a great 
kindness lately, which I hope to be able to repay. I 
hope we shall not be in your way here. As soon as 
this lady is rested, we shall proceed on our journey.” 

What a well-bred old salmon he was ! 

44 So you have seen things like me before? ” asked 
Tom. 

44 Several times, my dear. Ifideed, it was only last 
night that one at the river’s mouth came and warned 
me and my wife of some new stake-nets which had 
got into the stream, I cannot tell how, since last win- 
ter, and showed us the way round them, in the most 
charmingly obliging way.” 

44 So there are babies in the sea? ” cried Tom, and 
clapped his little hands. 44 Then I shall have some 
one to play with, there? How delightful! ” 

44 Were there no babies up this stream? ” asked the 
lady salmon. 

44 No! and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three 


77 


last night; but they were gone in an instant, down to 
the sea. So I went too, for I had nothing to play with 
but caddises and dragon-flies and trout.” 

“ Ugh! ” cried the lady, “ what low company! ” 

“ My dear, if he has been in low company, he has 
certainly not learnt their low manners,” said the 
salmon. 

“No, indeed, poor little dear: but how sad for him 
to live among such people as caddises, who have actu- 
ally six legs, the nasty things; and dragon-flies, too! 
why they are not even good to eat; for I tried them 
once, and they are all hard and empty; and as for 
trout, everyone knows what they are.” Whereon she 
curled up her lip, and looked dreadfully scornful, while 
her husband curled up his, too, till he looked as proud 
as Alcibiades. 

“ Why do you dislike the trout so? ” asked Tom. 

“ My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can 
help it; for I am sorry to say they are relations of 
ours who do us no credit. A great many years ago 
they were just like us: but they were so lazy, and cow- 
ardly, and greedy, that instead of going down to the 
sea every year to see the world and grow strong and 
fat, they chose to stay and poke about in the little 
streams and eat worms and grubs; and they are very 
properly punished for it; for they have grown ugly 
and brown and spotted and small; and are actually 
so degraded in their tastes that they will eat our chil- 
dren.” 

“ And then they pretend to scrape acquaintance 


78 


with us again,” said the lady. “ Why, I have actually 
known one of them propose to a lady salmon, the 
impudent little creature.” 

“ I should hope,” said the gentleman, that there 
are very few ladies of our race who would degrade 
themselves by listening to such a creature for an in- 
stant. If I saw such a thing happen, I should con- 
sider it my duty to put them both to death upon the 
spot.” So the old salmon said, like an old blue-blooded 
hidalgo of Spain ; and what is more he would have done 
it too. 

“ Sweet is the lore which Nature brings ; 

Our meddling intellect 
Misshapes the beauteous form of things 
We murder to dissect. 

“ Enough of science and of art : 

Close up those barren leaves ; 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
That watches and receives.” 

— Wordsworth. 


79 


CHAPTER IV 


So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them 
of the wicked old otter; and Tom went down, but 
slowly and cautiously, coasting along the shore. He 
was many days about it, for it was many miles down 
to the sea ; and perhaps he would never have found his 
way, if the fairies had not guided him, without his see- 
ing their fair faces, or feeling their gentle hands. 

And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. 
It was a clear September night, and the moon shone 
so brightly down through the water that he could not 
sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight as possible. 
So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon a little 
point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow 
moon, and wondered what she was, and thought that 
she looked at him. And he watched the moonlight on 
the rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and 
the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl’s hoot, 
and the snipe’s bleat, and the fox’s bark, and the otter’s 
laugh ; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and 
the wafts of heather honey off the grouse moor far 
above; and felt very happy, though he could not tell 
why. You, of course, would have been very cold sit- 
ting there on a September night, without the least bit 


80 


of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water- 
baby, and therefore felt no more cold than a fish. 

Suddenly he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red 
light moved along the river-side and threw down into 
the water a long tap-root of flame. Tom, curious lit- 
tle rogue that he was, must needs go and see what it 
was ; so he swam to the shore, and met the light as it 
stopped over a shallow run at the edge of a low rock. 

And there, underneath the light, lay five or six 
great salmon, looking up at the flame with their great 
goggle eyes and wagging their tails as if they were 
very much pleased at it. 

Tom came to the top, to look at this wonderful light 
nearer, and made a splash. 

And he heard a voice say : 

“ There was a fish rose.” 

He did not know what the words meant: but he 
seemed to know the sound of them, and to know the 
voice which spoke them ; and he saw on the bank three 
great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the 
light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long pole. 
And he knew that they were men, and was frightened, 
and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he could 
see what went on. 

The man with the torch bent down over the water, 
and looked earnestly in ; and then he said, 

“ Tak’ that muckle fellow, lad; he’s ower fifteen 
•punds; and hand your hand steady.” 

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and 
longed to warn the foolish salmon, who kept staring 


81 


up at the light as if he were bewitched. But before 
he could make up his mind, down came the pole 
through the water; there was a fearful splash and 
struggle, and Tom saw that the poor salmon was 
speared right through, and was lifted out of the 
water. 

And then, from behitid, there sprang on these three 
men, three other men; and there were shouts, and 
blows, and words which Tom recollected to have heard 
before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them 
now, for lie felt somehow that they were strange, and 
ugly, and wrong, and horrible. And it all began to 
come back to him. They were men; and they w r ere 
fighting; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, 
such as Tom had seen too many times before. 

And he stopped his little ears, and longed to swim 
away; and was very glad that he was a water-baby, 
and had nothing to do any more with horrid, dirty 
men, with foul clothes on their backs, and foul words 
on their lips; but he dared not stir out of his hole: 
while the rock shook over his head with the trampling 
and struggling of the keepers and the poachers. 

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, and 
a frightful flash, and a hissing, and all was still. 

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the 
men; he who held the light in his hand. Into the 
swift river he sank, and rolled over and over into the 
current. Tom heard the men above run along, seem- 
ingly looking for him; but he drifted down into the 


82 


deep hole below, and there lay quite still, and they 
could not find him. 

Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet; and then 
he peeped out, and saw the man lying. At last he 
screwed up his courage and swam down to him. “ Per- 
haps,” he thought, “ the water has made him fall 
asleep, as it did me.” 

Then he went nearer. He grew more and more 
curious, he could not tell why. He must go and look 
at him. He would go very quietly, of course; so he 
swam round and round him, closer and closer; and 
as he did not stir, at last he came quite close and 
looked him in the face. 

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see 
every feature; and as he saw, he recollected, bit by 
bit, it was his old master, Grimes. 

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he 
could. 

“ Oh, dear me! ” he thought, “ now he will turn into 
a water-baby. What a nasty, troublesome one he will 
be! And perhaps he will find me out, and beat me 
again.” 

So he went up the river again a little way, and lay 
there the rest of the night under an alder-root; but, 
when morning came, he longed to go down again to 
the big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned 
into a water-baby yet. 

So he went very carefully, peeping round all the 
rocks, and hiding under all the roots. Mr. Grimes lay 
there still; he had not turned into a water-baby. In 


83 


the afternoon Tom went back again. He could not 
rest until he had found out what had become of Mr. 
Grimes. But this time Mr. Grimes was gone; and 
Tom made up his mind that he was turned into a 
water-baby. 

He might have made himself easy, poor little man ; 
Mr. Grimes did not turn into a water-baby, or any- 
thing like one at all. But he did not make himself 
easy; and a long time he was fearful lest he should 
meet Grimes suddenly in some deep pool. He could 
not know that the fairies had carried him away, and 
put him, where they put everything which falls into 
the water, exactly where it ought to be. But, do you 
know, what happened to Mr. Grimes had such an 
effect on him that he never poached salmon any more. 

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of 
staying near Grimes: and as .he went, all the vale 
looked sad. The red and yellow leaves showered down 
into the river; the flies and beetles were all dead and 
gone ; the chill autumn fog lay low upon the hills, and 
sometimes spread itself so thickly upon the river that 
he could not see his way. But he felt his way instead, 
following the flow of the stream, day after day, past 
great bridges, past boats and barges, past the great 
town, with its wharves, and mills, and tall smoking 
chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor in the stream ; 
and now and then he ran against their hawsers; and 
wondered what they were; and peeped out, and saw 
the sailors lounging on board smoking their pipes; 
and ducked under again, for he was terribly afraid of 


84 


being caught by man and turned into a chimney-sweep 
once more. He cjid not know that the fairies were 
close to him always, shutting the sailors’ eyes lest they 
should see him, and turning him aside from mill-races 
and sewer-mouths, and all foul and dangerous things. 
Poor little fellow, it was a dreary journey for him; 
and more than once he longed to be back in Vendale, 
playing with the trout in the bright summer sun. But 
it could not be. What has once been can never come 
again. And people can be little babies, even water- 
babies, only once in their lives. 

But Tom was always a brave, determined, little 
English bull-dog, who never knew when he was beat- 
en; and on and on he held, till he saw a long way off 
the red buoy through the fog. And then he found to 
his surprise, the stream turned round, and running up 
inland. 

It was the tide, of course; but Tom knew nothing 
of the tide. He only knew that in a minute more the 
water, which had been fresh, turned salt all round him. 
And then a change came over him. He felt as strong, 
and light, and fresh, as if his veins had run champagne; 
and gave, he knew not why, three skips out of the wa- 
ter, a yard high, and head over heels, just as the salmon 
do when they first touch the noble rich salt water, 
which, as some wise men tell us, is the mother of all 
living things. 

He did not care now for the tide being against him. 
The red buoy was in sight, dancing in the open sea; 
and to the buoy he would go, and to it he went. He 


85 


passed great shoals of bass and mullet, leaping and 
rushing in after the shrimps, but he never heeded them, 
or they him; and once he passed a great black shining 
seal, who was coming in after the mullet. The seal 
put his head and shoulders out of the water, and stared 
at him, looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro 
with a gray pate. 



TOM . . . LOOKED AROUND FOR WATER-BABIES . . . 


And Tom, instead of being frightened, said, “ How 
d’ye do, sir; what a beautiful place the sea is! ” And 
the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, looked at 
him with his soft, sleepy, winking eyes, and said, 


86 


4 ‘ Good tide to you, my little man; are you looking 
for your brothers and sisters? I passed them all at 
play outside.” 

44 Oh, then,” said Tom, “ I shall have playfellows 
at last,” and he swam on to the buoy, and got up on 
it (for he was quite out of breath) and sat there, and 
looked round for water-babies : but there were none to 
be seen. 

The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and 
blew the fog away; and the little waves danced for 
joy around the buoy, and the old buoy danced with 
them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over the 
bright blue bay, and never yet caught each other up ; 
and the breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white 
sands, and jumped up over the rocks, to see what the 
green fields inside were like, and tumbled down and 
broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded it a 
bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. 
And the terns hovered over Tom like huge white 
dragon-flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed 
like girls at play, and the sea-pies with their red bills 
and legs, flew to and fro from shore to shore, and 
whistled sweet and wild. 

And Tom looked and listened; and he would have 
been very happy, if he could only have seen the water- 
babies. Then when the tide turned, he left the buoy, 
and swam round and round, in search of them: but 
in vain. Sometimes he thought he heard them laugh- 
ing : but it was only the laughter of the ripples. And 
sometimes he thought he saw them at the bottom: 


87 


but it was only white and pink shells. And once he 
was sure he had found one, for he saw two bright 
eyes peeping out of the sand. 

So he dived down, and began scraping the sand 
away, and cried, “ Don’t hide ; I do want some one to 
play with so much ! ” And out jumped a great turbot 
with his ugly eyes and mouth all awry, and flopped 
away along the bottom, knocking poor Tom over. 
And he sat down at the bottom of the sea, and cried 
salt tears from sheer disappointment. 

To have come all this way, and faced so many dan- 
gers, and yet to find no water-babies! How hard! 
Well, it did seem hard: but people, even little babies, 
cannot have all they want without waiting for it, and 
working for it, too, my little man, as you will find out 
some day. 

And Tom sat upon the buoy long days, long weeks, 
looking out to sea, and wondering when the water- 
babies would come back; and yet they never came. 

Then he began to ask all the strange things which 
came in out of the sea if they had seen any ; and some 
said “ yes,” and some said nothing at all. 

He asked the bass and the pollock; but they were 
so greedy after the shrimps that they did not care to 
answer him a word. 

Then there came a whole fleet of purple sea-snails, 
floating along, each on a sponge full of foam, and Tom 
said, “ Where do you come from, you pretty crea- 
tures? and have- you seen the water-babies?” 

And the sea-snails answered, “ Whence we come we 


88 


know not; and whither we are going, who can tell? 
We float out our life in mid-ocean, with the warm sun- 
shine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream be- 
low; and that is enough for us. Yes; perhaps we have 
seen the water-babies. We have seen many strange 
things as we sailed along.” And they floated away, 
the happy stupid things, and all went ashore upon the 
sands. 

Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as 
a fat pig cut in half ; and he seemed to have been cut 
in half, too, and squeezed in a clothes-press till he 
was flat; but to all his big body and big fins he had 
only a little rabbit’s mouth, no bigger than Tom’s; 
and when Tom questioned him, he answered in a little, 
squeaky voice: 

“I’m sure I don’t know ; I’ve lost my way. I meant 
to go to the Chesapeake, and I’m afraid I’ve gone 
wrong somehow. Dear me ! It was all following that 
pleasant warm water. I’m sure I’ve lost my way.” 

And when Tom asked him again, he could only an- 
swer, “ I’ve lost my way. Don’t talk to me; I want 
to think.” 

But like a good many other people, the more he 
tried to think the less he could think; and Tom saw 
him blundering about all day, till the coast-guardsman 
saw his big fin above the water, and rowed out and 
stuck a boat-hook into him and took him away. They 
took him up to the town and showed him for a penny 
a head, and made a good day’s work of it. But of 
course Tom did not know that. 


89 


And there came by a school of porpoises, rolling as 
they went — papas, mammas, and the little children — 
and all quite smooth and shiny, because the fairies 
French-polish them every morning; and they sighed 
so softly as they came by, that Tom took courage to 
speak to them: but all they answered was, “Hush, 
hush, hush; ” for that was all they had learnt to say. 

And then there came a school of basking sharks, 
some of them as long as a boat, and Tom was fright- 
ened at them. But they were very lazy, good-natured 
fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and blue 
sharks and hammer heads, who eat men; or saw-fish 
and threshers and ice-sharks, who hunt the poor old 
whales. They came and rubbed their great sides 
against the buoy, and lay basking in the sun with their 
fins out of water; and winked at Tom: but he never 
could get them to speak. They had eaten so many 
herrings that they were quite stupid; and Tom was 
glad when a collier brig came by and frightened them 
all away; for they did smell most horribly, certainly, 
and he had to hold his nose tight as long as they were 
there. 

And then there came by a beautiful creature, like a 
ribbon of pure silver with a sharp head and very long 
teeth ; but it seemed very sick and sad. Sometimes it 
rolled helplessly on its side; and then it dashed away 
glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again 
and motionless. 

“ Where do you come from? ” asked Tom. “ And 
why are you so sick and sad? ” 


90 


“ I come from the warm Carolinas, and the sand 
banks fringed with pines; where the great owl-rays 
leap and flap, like giant bats, upon the tide. But I 
wandered far north and north, upon the treacherous 
warm Gulf Stream, till I met with the cold icebergs, 
afloat in the mid-ocean. So I got tangled among the 
icebergs, and chilled with their frozen breath. But the 
water-babies helped me from among them, and set me 
free again. And now I am mending every day; but 
I am sick and sad ; and perhaps I shall never get home 
again to play with the owl-rays any more.” 

“Oh!” cried Tom. “And you have seen water- 
babies ? Have you seen any near here ? ” 

“ Yes, they helped me again last night, or I should 
have been eaten by a great black porpoise.” 

How vexatious ! The water-babies close to him, and 
yet he could not find one. 

And then he left the buoy, and used to go along 
the sands and round the rocks, and come out in the 
night, and sit upon a point of rock, among the shin- 
ing sea-weeds, in the low October tides, and cry and 
call for the water-babies; but he never heard a voice 
call in return. And at last, with his fretting and cry- 
ing, he grew quite lean and thin. 

But one day among the rocks he found a playfel- 
low. It was not a water-baby, alas ! but it was a lob- 
ster; and a very distinguished lobster he was; for he 
had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark 
of distinction in lobsterdom. 

Tom had never seen a lobster before; and he was 


91 


mightily taken with this one; for he thought him the 
most curious, odd, ridiculous creature he had ever seen ; 
and there he was not far wrong ; for all the ingenious 
men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful 
men, in the world, ^ with all the old German bogy- 
painters into the bargain, could never invent, if all 
their wits were boiled into one, anything so curious, 
and so ridiculous, as a lobster. 

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; 
and Tom delighted in watching him hold on to* the 
sea-weed with his knobbed claw, while he cut up salads 
with his jagged one, and put them into his mouth, 
after smelling at them, like a monkey. And always 
the little barnacles threw out their casting-nets and 
swept the water, and came in for their share of what- 
ever there was for dinner. 

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired 
himself off — snap ! like the leap-frogs which you make 
out of a goose’s breast-bone. Certainly he took the 
most wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For if he 
wanted to go into a narrow crack* ten yards off, what 
do you think he did? If he had gone in head fore- 
most, of course he could not have turned round. So 
he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns, 
which carry his sixth sense in their tips (and nobody 
knows what that sixth sense is), straight down his 
back to guide him, and twist his eyes back till they 
almost came out of their sockets, and then made ready, 
present, fire, snap ! — and away he went, pop into the 


92 


hole; and peeped out and twiddled his whiskers, as 
much as to say, “ You couldn’t do that.” 

Tom asked him about water-babies. “ Yes,” he 
said; he had seen them often. But he did not think 
much of them. They were meddlesome little creatures, 
that went about helping fish and shells which got into 
scrapes. Well, for his part, he would be ashamed to 
be helped by little soft creatures that had not even 
a shell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough 
in the world to take care of himself. 

He was a conceited fellow, the lobster, and not very 
civil to Tom; and you will hear how he had to alter 
his mind before he was done, as conceited people gen- 
erally have. But he was so funny, and Tom so lonely, 
that he could not quarrel with him; and they used to 
sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours. 

And about this time there happened to Tom a very 
strange and important adventure — so important, in- 
deed, that he was very near never finding any water- 
babies at all ; and I am sure you would have been sorry 
for that. 

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white 
lady all this while. At least, here she comes, looking 
like a clean white good little darling, as she always 
was, and always will be. It befell in the pleasant short 
December days, when the wind always blows from the 
south-west, till Old Father Christmas comes and 
spreads the great white table-cloth, ready for little 
boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas din- 
ner of crumbs — it befell, that Sir John was so busy 


98 


hunting that nobody at home could get a word out 
of him. Whereupon my lady determined to go off 
and leave him; so she started to the seaside with all 
the children. But where she went nobody must know, 
for fear young ladies should begin to fancy that there 
are water-babies there! 

N ow it befell that, on that very shore, and over the 
very rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend the 
lobster, there walked one day the little white lady, 
Elbe herself, and with her a very wise man indeed — 
Professor Ptthmllnsprts. And he was showing her 
about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and 
curious things which are to be seen there. 1 $ ut little 
Elbe was not satisfied with them at all. She liked 
much better to play with live children, or even with 
dobs, which she could pretend were ahve; and at last 
she said quite honestly, 

“ I don’t care about all these things, because they 
can’t play with me, nor talk to me. If there were 
little children now in the water, as there used to be, 
and I could see them, I should like that.” 

“ Children in the water, you strange little duck? ” 
said the professor. 

“Yes,” said Elbe. “I know there used to be chil- 
dren in the water, and mermaids, too, and mermen. I 
saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady, 
sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying 
about her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mer- 
maids swimming and playing, and the mermen trum- 
peting on conch-shells ; and it is called the ‘Triumph 


94 


of Galatea ’ ; and there is a burning mountain in the 
picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and 
I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt 
about it a hundred times; and it is so beautiful that 
it must be true.” 

But the professor had not the least notion of allow- 
ing that things were true, merely because people 
thought them beautiful. 

Now little Elbe was, I suppose, a stupid little girl; 
for instead of being convinced by Professor Ptthmlln- 
sprts’ arguments, she only asked the same question 
over again. 

“ But why are there not water-babies? ” 

I trust and hope that it was because the professor 
trod at that moment on the edge of a very sharp mus- 
sel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he answered 
quite sharply: 

“ Because there ain’t.” 

And he groped with his net under the weeds so 
violently, that, as it befell, he caught poor little Tom. 
He felt the net very heavy; and lifted it out quickly, 
with Tom all tangled in the meshes. 

“ Dear me! ” he cried, “ What a large pink Holo- 
thurian ; with hands, too ! It must be connected with 
Synapta.” 

And he took him out. 

“ It has actually eyes! ” he cried. “ Why it must 
be a Cephalopod ! This is most extraordinary.” 

“ No, I ain’t! ” cried Tom, as loud as he could; for 
he did not like to be called bad names. 


95 



“ It’s a water-baby! ” cried Elbe; and of course it 
was. 

“ Water-fiddlesticks, my dear! ” said the professor; 
and he turned away sharply. 


“it’s a water-baby!” cried ellie . . . 

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby ! and 
he had said a moment ago that there were none. What 
was he to do? 

He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom 
home in a bucket. He would not have put him in 
spirits. Of course not. He would have kept him 
alive, and petted him (for he was a very kind old 


96 



gentleman ) , and written a book about him, and given 
him two long names. But — he had already written 
a learned paper stating that there were no such crea- 
tures as water-babies; so what would all the learned 
men say, and what would Elbe say? 

He longed to keep Tom, and yet he half wished he 
had never caught him ; and at last he longed to get rid 
of him. So he turned away and poked Tom with his 
finger, for want of anything better to do, and said 
carelessly, “ My dear little maid, you must have 
dreamt of water-babies last night, your head is so full 
of them.” 

Now Tom had been in the most horrible and un- 
speakable fright all the while; and kept as quiet as he 
could, though he was called a Holothurian and a 
Cephalopod; for it was fixed in his little head that 
if a man with clothes on caught him, he might put 
clothes on him, too, and make a dirty black chimney- 
sweep of him again. But when the professor poked 
him, it was more than he could bear; and, between 
fright and rage, he turned bay as valiantly as a mouse 
in a corner, and bit the professor’s finger till it bled. 

“Oh! ah! yah! ” cried he; and glad of an excuse to 
be rid of Tom, dropped him on the sea-weed, and 
thence he dived into the water, and was gone in a mo- 
ment. 

“ But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak! ” 
cried Elbe. “Ah, it is gone!” And she jumped 
down off the rock to try and catch Tom before he 
slipped into the sea. 


97 


Too late! and what was worse, as she sprang down, 
she slipped, and fell some six feet with her head on a 
sharp rock, and lay quite still. 

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken her, 
and called to her, and cried over her, for he loved her 
very much: but she would not waken at all. So he 
took her up in his arms and carried her to her govern- 
ess, and they all went home ; and little Ellie was put 
to bed, and lay quite still ; only now and then she woke 
up and called out about the water-baby: but no one 
knew what she meant, and the professor did not tell, 
for he was ashamed to tell. 

And after a week, one moonlight night, the fairies 
came flying in at the window and brought her such a 
pretty pair of wings that she could not help putting 
them on; and she flew with them out of the window, 
and over the land, and over the sea, and up through 
the clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her 
for a very long while. 

“ Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 

The Godhead’s most benignant grace ; 

Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 

Flowers laugh before thee on thy beds. 

And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, 
are fresh and strong.” 

— Wordsworth : Ode to Duty. 


98 


CHAPTER V 


But what became of little Tom ? 

He slipped away off the rocks into the water, as I 
said before. But he could not help thinking of little 
Elbe. He did not remember who she was; but he 
knew that she was a little girl, though she was a hun- 
dred times as big as he. He thought about her all 
that day, and longed to have her to play with; hut 
he had very soon to think of something else. And 
here is an account of what happened to him, as it was 
published in the Waterproof Gazette, on the finest 
watered paper, for the use of the great fairy, Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid, who reads the news very carefully 
every morning, especially the police cases* as you 
will hear very soon. 

He was going along the rocks in three fathoms of 
water, watching the pollock catch prawns, and the 
wrasses nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and all, 
when he saw a round cage of green withes ; and inside 
it, looking very much ashamed of himself, sat his 
friend the lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of his 
thumbs. 

“ What, have you been naughty, and have they put 
you in the lock-up? ” asked Tom. 


99 


The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, 
but he was too much depressed in spirits to argue ; so 
he only said, “ I can’t get out.” 

“ Why did you get in? ” 

“ After that nasty piece of dead fish.” He had 
thought it looked and smelt very nice when he was 
outside, and so it did, for a lobster : but now he turned 
round and abused it because he was angry with him- 
self. 

“ Where did you get in? ” 

“ Through that round hole at the top.” 

“ Then why don’t you get out through it? ” 

“Because I can’t!” and the lobster twiddled his 
horns more fiercely than ever, but he was forced to 
confess. ^ 

“ I have jumped upwards, downwards, backwards, 
and sideways, at least four thousand times; and I 
can’t get out: I always get up underneath there and 
can’t find the hole.” 

Tom looked at the trap, and having more wit than 
the lobster, he saw plainly what was the matter ; as you 
may if you look at a lobster-pot. 

“ Stop a bit,” said Tom. “ Turn your tail up to 
me, and I’ll pull you through hindforemost and then 
you won’t stick in the spikes.” 

But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he 
couldn’t hit the hole. Tom reached and clawed down 
the hole after him, till he caught hold of him ; and then, 
as was to be expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him 
in headforemost. 


TOO 


Hullo! here is a pretty business,” said Tom. 

Now you take your great claws, and break off the 
points of those spikes, and then we shall both get out 
quite easily.” 

“ Dear me, I never thought of that,” said the lob- 
ster; “ and after all the experience of life that I have 
had.” 

You see, experience is of little good unless a man, 
or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it. 

But they had not got half the spikes away when 
they saw a great dark cloud over them: and lo, and 
behold, it was the otter. 

How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom ! 

“ Yar! ” said she, “ you little meddlesome wretch, 
I have you now! I will serve you out for telling the 
salmon where I was ! ” And she crawled all over the 
pot to get in. 

Tom was horribly frightened, and still more fright- 
ened when she found the hole in the top, and squeezed 
herself right down through it, all eyes and teeth. But 
no sooner was her head inside than valiant Mr. Lob- 
ster caught her by the nose and held on. 

And there they were all three in the pot, rolling 
over and over, and very tight packing it was. And 
the lobster tore at the otter, and the otter tore at the 
lobster, and both squeezed and thumped poor Tom 
till he had no breath left in his body ; and I don’t know 
what would have happened to him, if he had not at 
last got on the otter’s back, and safe out of the hole. 

He was right glad when he got out: but he would 


101 


not desert his friend who had saved him; and the first 
time he saw his tail uppermost he caught hold of it, 
and pulled with all his might. 

But the lobster would not let go. 



“ COME ALONG,” SAID TOM; “ DON’T YOU SEE SHE IS DEAD? 


“Come along,” said Tom; “don’t you see she is 
dead?” And so she was, — quite drowned and dead. 
And that was the end of the wicked otter. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“ Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,” 
cried Tom, “ or the fisherman will catch you! ” And 


102 




that was true, for Tom felt some one above beginning 
to haul up the pot. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to the boat- 
side, and thought it was all up with him. But when 
Mr. Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furi- 
ous and tremendous snap, that he snapped out of his 
hand, and out of the pot, and safe into the sea. But 
he left his knobbed claw behind him ; for it never came 
into his stupid head to let go after all, so he just shook 
his claw off as the easier method. 

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of let- 
ting go. He said very determinedly that it was a 
point of honor among lobsters. 

And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing ; 
for he had not left the lobster five minutes before he 
came upon a water-baby. 

A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand, 
very busy about a little point of rock. And when it 
saw Tom it looked up for a moment, and then cried, 
“ Why, you are not one of us. You are a new baby! 
Oh, how delightful !” 

And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they 
hugged and kissed each other for ever so long, they 
did not know why. But they did not want any intro- 
duction there under the water. 

At last Tom said, “ Oh, where have you been all 
this while? I have been looking for you so long, and 
I have been so lonely.” 

“ We have been here for days and days. There are 


103 


hundreds of us about the rocks. How was it you did 
not see us, or hear us sing and romp every evening 
before we go home? ” 

Tom looked at the water-baby again, and then he 
said: 

“ Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things like 
you again and again, but I thought you were shells, 
or sea-creatures. I never took you for water-babies 
like myself.” 

Now, was not that odd? So odd, indeed, that you 
will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, and 
why Tom could never find a water-baby till after he 
had got the lobster out of the pot. And if you will 
read this story nine times over, and then think for 
yourself, you will find out why. It is not good for 
little boys to be told everything, and never forced to 
use their own wits. 

“ Now,” said the baby, “ come and help me, or I 
shall not have finished before my brothers and sisters 
come, and it is time to go home.” 

“ And what shall I help you at? ” 

“ At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy boul- 
der came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked all 
its head off, and rubbed off all its flowers. And now 
I must plant it again with sea-weeds, and coralline 
and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little 
rock-garden on all the shore.” 

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, 
and smoothed the sand down, round it, and capital fun 
they had till the tide began to turn. And then Tom 


104 


heard all the other babies coming, laughing and sing- 
ing, and shouting and romping; and the noise they 
made was just like the noise of the ripples. So he 
knew that he had been seeing and hearing the water- 
babies all along; only he did not know them, because 
his eyes and ears were not opened. 

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, some 
bigger than Tom and some smaller, all in the neatest 
little white bathing dresses ; and when they found that 
he was a new baby, they hugged and kissed him, and 
then they put him in the middle and danced round him 
on the sand, and there was no one ever so happy as 
poor little Tom. 

“ Now, then,” they cried all at once, “ we must come 
away home, we must come away home, or the tide will 
leave us dry. We have mended all the broken sea- 
weed, and put all the rock-pools in order, and planted 
all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will see 
where the ugly storm swept in last week.” 

And this is the reason why the rock-pools are al- 
ways so neat and clean; because the water-babies al- 
ways come in shore after every storm to sweep them 
out, and comb them down, and put them all to rights 
again. 

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let 
sewers run into the sea instead of putting the stuff 
upon the fields like thrifty, reasonable souls; or throw 
herrings’ heads and dead dog-fish, or any other refuse, 
into the water; or in any way make a mess upon the 
clean shore — there the water-babies will not come, 


105 


sometimes not for hundreds of years (for they cannot 
abide anything smelly and foul), but leave the sea- 
anemones and crabs to clear away everything, till the 
good tidy sea has covered up all the dirt in soft mud 
and clean sand, where the water-babies can plant live 
cockles and whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers 
and golden-combs, and make a pretty live garden 
again, after man’s dirt is cleared away. And that, I 
suppose, is the reason why there are no water-babies 
at any watering-place which I have ever seen. 

And where is the home of the water-babies? In 
St. Brandan’s fairy isle. 

Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how 
he preached to the wild Irish on the wild, wild Kerry 
coast, he and five other hermits, till they were weary 
and longed to rest? For the wild Irish would not 
listen to them. 

So St. Brandan looked over the tide-way, and far 
away, before the setting sun, he saw a blue fairy sea, 
and golden fairy islands and he said, “ Those are the 
islands of the blest.” Then he and his friends sailed 
away and away to the westward, and were never heard 
of more. 

And when St. Brandan and the hermits came to 
that fairy isle, they found it overgrown with cedars 
and full of beautiful birds; and he sat down under 
the cedars and preached to all the birds in the air. And 
they liked his sermons so well that they told the fishes 
in the sea; and they came, and St. Brandan preached 
to them ; and the fishes told the water-babies, who live 


106 


in the caves under the isle ; and they came up by hun- 
dreds every Sunday, and St. Brandan got quite a neat 
little Sunday-school. 

And there he taught the water-babies for a great 
many hundred years, till his eyes grew too dim to see, 
and his beard grew so long that he dared not walk for 
fear of treading on it, and then he might have tumbled 
down. And at last he and the five hermits fell fast 
asleep under the cedar-shades, and there they sleep 
unto this day. But the fairies took the water-babies, 
and taught them their lessons themselves. 

Now when Tom got there he found that the isle 
stood all on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. 
And there were blue grottoes and white grottoes, all 
curtained and draped with sea-weed, purple and crim- 
son, green and brown; and strewn with soft white 
sand, on which the water-babies sleep at night. 

But to keep the place clean and sweet, the crabs 
picked up all the scraps off the floor and ate them like 
so many monkeys; while the rocks were covered with 
ten thousand sea-anemones, and corals and madre- 
pores, who scavenged the water all day long, and 
kept it nice and pure. But, to make up for their 
having to do such nasty work, they were not left black 
and dirty, as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. 
No; the fairies are more considerate and just than 
that ; and have dressed them all in the most beautiful 
colors and patterns, till they look just like vast flower- 
beds of gay blossoms. 

And instead of watchmen and policemen to keep 


107 


out nasty things at night, there were thousands and 
thousands of water-snakes, and most wonderful crea- 
tures they were. They were named after the sea- 
fairies who took care of them. They were dressed in 
green velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet ; and 
were all jointed in rings; and some of them had three' 
hundred brains apiece, so they must have been uncom- 
monly shrewd detectives; and some had eyes in their 
tails; and some had eyes in every joint, so they kept 
a sharp look-out. 

And there were water-babies in thousands, more 
than Tom, or you either, could count. All the little 
children whom the good fairies take to, because their 
cruel grown-ups will not; all who are untaught and 
brought up heathens, and all who come to grief by 
ill-usage or ignorance or neglect ; all the little children 
who are over-laid, or given gin when they are young, 
or who are let to drink out of hot kettles, or to fall 
into the fire ; all the little children in alleys and courts, 
and tumble-down cottages, who die by fever, and 
cholera, and measles and scarlatina, and nasty com- 
plaints which no one has any business to have, and 
which no one will have some day, when folks have 
common sense ; and all the little children who have been 
killed by cruel masters and wicked soldiers ; they were 
all there, except, of course, the babes of Bethlehem 
who were killed by the wicked King Herod; for they 
were taken straight to heaven long ago, as every- 
body knows, and we call them the Holy Innocents. 

But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks. 


108 


and left off tormenting dumb animals, now that he 
had plenty of fellows to amuse him. Instead of that, 
I am sorry to say, he would meddle with the crea- 
tures, all but the water-snakes, for they would stand 
no nonsense. So he tickled the madrepores, to make 
them shut up; and he frightened the crabs, to make 
them hide in the sand and peep out at him with the 
tips of their eyes ; and he put stones into the anemones’ 
mouths, to make them fancy that their dinner was 
coming. 

The other children warned him, and said, “ Take 
care what you are at. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is 
coming.” But Tom never heeded them, being quite 
riotous with high spirits and good luck, till, one Fri- 
day morning, early, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid came in- 
deed. 

A very tremendous lady she was ; and when the chil- 
dren saw her they all stood in a row, very upright, 
indeed, and smoothed down their bathing-dresses and 
put their hands behind them, just as if they were 
going to be examined by an inspector. 

And she had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, 
and a huge pair of green spectacles, and a great 
hooked nose, hooked so much that the bridge of it 
stood quite up above her eyebrows ; and under her arm 
she carried a birch-rod. Indeed, she was so ugly that 
Tom was tempted to make faces at her: but he did 
not; for he did not admire the look of the birch-rod 
under her arm. 

And she looked at the children one by one, and 


109 


seemed very much pleased with them, though she never 
asked them one question about how they were behav- 
ing ; and then began giving them all sorts of nice sea- 
things: sea-cakes, sea-apples, sea-oranges, sea-bulls- 
eyes, sea-toffee; and to the very best of all she gave 
sea-ices, made out of sea-cows’ cream, which never 
melt under water. 

Now little Tom watched all these sweet things given 
away, till his mouth watered, and his eyes grew round 
as an owl’s. For he hoped that his turn would come 
at last; and so it did. For the lady called him up, 
and held out her fingers with something in them, and 
popped it into his mouth ; and lo and behold, it was a 
nasty cold hard pebble. 

“ You are a very cruel woman,” said he, and began 
to whimper. 

“ And you are a very cruel boy ; who puts pebbles 
into the sea-anemones’ mouths, to take them in, and 
make them fancy they had caught a good dinner! 
As you did to them, so I must do to you.” 

“ Who told you that? ” said Tom. 

“ You did yourself, this very minute.” 

Tom had never opened his lips ; so he was very much 
taken back, indeed. 

“ Yes; everyone tells me exactly what they have 
done wrong; and that without knowing it themselves. 
So there is no use trying to hide anything from me. 
Now go, and be a good boy, and I will put no more 
pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in other crea- 
tures’.” 


110 


“ I did not know there was any harm in it,” said 
Tom. 

“ Then you know now. People continually say that 
to me: but I tell them, if you don’t know that fire 
burns, that is no reason that it should not burn you; 
and if you don’t know that dirt breeds fever, that 
is no reason why the fevers should not kill you. The 
lobster did not know there was any harm in getting 
into the lobster-pot; but it caught him all the same.” 

“Dear me,” thought Tom, “she knows everything!” 
And so she did, indeed. 

“ And so, if you do not know that things are wrong, 
that is no reason why you should not be punished for 
them; though not so much, not so much, my little 
man” (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), 
“ as if you did know.” 

“Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,” said 
Tom. 

“ Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in 
your life. But I will tell you; I cannot help punish- 
ing people when they do wrong. I like it no more 
than they do; I am often very, very sorry for them, 
poor things: but I cannot help it. If I tried not to 
do it, I should do it all the same. For I work by 
machinery, just like an engine, and am full of wheels 
and springs inside ; and am wound up very carefully, 
so that I cannot help going.” 

“Was it long since they wound you up?” asked 
Tom. For he thought, the cunning little fellow, “ She 
will run down some day: or they may forget to wind 


111 


her up, as old Grimes used to forget to wind his watch 
when he came in from the public-house; and then I 
shall be safe.” 

“ I was wound up once and for all, so long ago, 
that I forget all about it.” 

“ Dear me,” said Tom, “ you must have been made 
a long time.” 

“ I never was made, my child ; and I shall go on for 
ever and ever; for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as 
young as Time.” 

And there came over the lady’s face a very curious 
expression — very solemn, and very sad ; yet very, very 
sweet. And she looked up and away, as if she were 
gazing through the sea, and through the sky, at some- 
thing far, far off; and as she did so, there came such a 
quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face, that 
Tom thought for a moment that she did not look ugly 
at all. 

And Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant 
for the moment. And the fairy smiled too, and said, 
“ Yes, you thought me ugly just now, did you not? ” 

Tom hung down his head, and got very red about 
the ears. 

4 4 And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in 
the world ; and I shall be, till people behave themselves 
as they ought to do. And then I shall grow as hand- 
some as my sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the 
world ; and her name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. 
So she begins where I end, and I begin where she 
ends ; and those who will not listen to her must listen 


112 


to me, as you will see. Now, all of you, run away, 
except Tom; and he may stay and see what I am going 
to do. It will be a very good warning for him to be- 
gin with, before he goes to school.” 

“ Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and 
call up all who have ill-used little children and serve 
them as they served the children.” 

And at that Tom was frightened, and crept under 
a stone; which made the two crabs who lived there 
very angry, and frightened their friend the butter-fish 
into flapping hysterics: but he would not move for 
them. 

And first she called up all the doctors who give 
little children so much physic ; and she set them all in 
a row; and very rueful they looked; for they knew 
what was coming. 

And first she pulled all their teeth out ; and then she 
bled them all round; and then she dosed them with 
calomel, and jalap, and salts and senna, and brimstone 
and treacle; and horrible faces they made; and then 
she gave them a great emetic of mustard and water, 
and no basins; and began all over again; and that was 
the way she spent the morning. 

And then she called up a whole troop of foolish 
ladies, who pinch up their children’s waists and toes; 
and she laced them all up in tight stays, so that they 
were choked and sick, and their noses grew red, and 
their hands and feet swelled; and she crammed their 
feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and made 
them all dance, which they did most clumsily, indeed ; 


113 


and then she asked them how they liked it ; and when 
they said not at all, she let them go. 

Then she called up all the careless nursery-maids, 
and stuck pins into them all over, and wheeled them 
about in perambulators with tight straps across their 
stomachs and their heads and arms hanging over the 
side, till they were quite sick and stupid, and would 
have had sun-strokes; but, being under water, they 
could only have water-strokes ; which, I assure you, are 
nearly as bad, as you will find if you try to sit under 
a mill-wheel. And mind — when you hear a rumbling 
at the bottom of the sea, sailors will tell you it is a 
ground-swell : but now you know better. It is the old 
lady wheeling the maids in the perambulators. 

And by that time she was tired and had to go to 
luncheon. 

And after luncheon she set to work again, and called 
up all the cruel school-masters — whole regiments and 
brigades of them ; and, when she saw them, she 
frowned terribly, and set to work in earnest, as if the 
best part of the day’s work was to come. 

And she boxed their ears and thumped them over 
the heads with rulers, and pandied their hands with 
canes, and told them that they told stories, and were 
this and that sort of bad people; and the more they 
were very indignant, and stood upon their honor, and 
declared they told the truth, the more she declared 
they were not, and that they were only telling lies; 
and at last she birched them all round soundly with 
her great birch-rod and set them each an imposition of 


114 


three hundred thousand lines of Hebrew to learn by 
heart before she came back next Friday. And at that 
they all howled and cried so, that their breaths came 
up through the sea like bubbles out of soda-water; 
and that is one reason of the bubbles in the sea. There 
are others; but that is the one which principally con- 
cerns little boys. And by that time she was so tired 
that she was glad to stop; and, indeed, she had done a 
very good day’s work. 

Tom did not quite dislike the old lady : but he could 
not help thinking her a little spiteful — and no wonder 
if she was, poor old soul ; for if she has to wait to grow 
handsome till people do as they would be done by, she 
will have to wait a very long time. 

Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! she has a great 
deal of hard work before her, and had better have 
been born a washerwoman, and stood over a tub all 
day; but, you see, people cannot always choose their 
own profession. 

But Tom longed to ask her one question ; and after 
all, whenever she looked at him, she did not look cross 
at all ; and now and then there was a funny smile in her 
face, and she chuckled to herself in a way that gave 
Tom courage, and at last he said: 

“ Pray, ma’am, may I ask you a question? ” 

“ Certainly, my little dear.” 

“ Why, don’t you bring all the bad masters here and 
serve them out, too? The butties that knock about 
the poor collier boys; and the nailers that file off boys’ 
noses and hammer their fingers; and all the master 


115 


sweeps, like my master, Grimes? I saw him fall into 
the water long ago ; so I surely expected that he would 
have been here. I am sure he was bad enough to 
me.” 

Then the old lady looked so stern that Tom was 
quite frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold. 
But she was not angry with him. She only answered, 
“ I look after them all the week round; and they are 
in a very different place than this, because they knew 
that they were doing wrong.” 

She spoke very quietly; but there was something in 
her voice which made Tom tingle from head to foot, 
as if he had got into a shoal of sea-nettles. 

“But these people,” she went on, “ did not know 
they were doing wrong ; they were only stupid and im- 
patient; and therefore I only punish them till they 
become patient, and learn to use their common-sense 
like reasonable beings. But as for chimney-sweeps, 
and collier-boys, and nailer lads, my sister has set 
good people to stop all that sort of thing; and very 
much obliged to her I am; for if she could only stop 
the cruel masters from ill-using the children, I should 
grow handsome at least a thousand years sooner. And 
now do you be a good boy, and do as you would be 
done by, which they did not ; and then, when my sister, 
Madam Doasyouwouldbedoneby, comes on Sunday 
perhaps she will take notice of you, and teach you how 
to behave. She understands that better than I do.” 
And so she went. 

Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance 


116 


of meeting Grimes again, though he was a little sorry 
for him, considering that he used sometimes to give 
him the leavings of the beer : but he determined to be a 
very good boy all Saturday ; and he was ; for he never 
frightened one crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor 
put stones into the sea-anemones’ mouths, to make 
them fancy they had got a dinner; and when Sunday 
morning came, sure enough, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbe- 
doneby came, too. Whereat all the little children be- 
gan dancing and clapping their hands, and Tom 
danced, too, with all his might. 

And as for the pretty lady, I cannot tell what the 
color of her hair was, or of her eyes; no more could 
Tom; for, when anyone looks at her, all they can think 
of is, that she has the sweetest, kindest, tenderest, fun- 
niest, merriest face they ever saw, or want to see. But 
Tom saw that she was a very tall woman, as tall as 
her sister : but instead of being gnarly, and horny, and 
scaly, and prickly, like her, she was the most nice, soft, 
fat, smooth, pussy, cuddly, delicious creature who ever 
nursed a baby ; and she understood babies thoroughly, 
for she had plenty of her own, whole rows and regi- 
ments of them, and has to this day. And all her de- 
light was, whenever she had a spare moment, to play 
with babies. And, therefore, when the children saw 
her, they naturally all caught hold of her, and pulled 
her, till she sat down on a stone, and climbed into her 
lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold of 
her hands; and then they all put their thumbs into 
their mouths, and began cuddling and purring like so 


117 


many kittens. While those who could get nowhere 
else sat down on the sand and cuddled her feet, for 
no one, you know, wears shoes in the water. And Tom 
stood staring at them; for he could not understand 
what it was all about, 

“ And who are you, you little darling? ” she said. 

“ Oh, that is the new baby! ” they all cried, pulling 
their thumbs out of their mouths; “ and he never had 
any mother,” and they all put their thumbs back 
again, for they did not wish to lose any time. 

“ Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the 
very best place: so get out, all of you, this moment.” 

And she took up two armfuls of babies — nine hun- 
dred under one arm and thirteen hundred under the 
other — and threw them away, right and left, into the 
water. But they did not mind that a bit, and did not 
even take their thumbs out of their mouths, but came 
paddling and wriggling back to her like so many tad- 
poles, till you could see nothing of her from head to 
foot for the swarm of little babies. 

But she took Tom in her arms, and laid him in the 
softest place of all, and kissed him, and patted him, 
and talked to him, tenderly and low, such things as 
he had never heard before in his life; and Tom looked 
up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, till he fell 
fast asleep from pure love. 

And when he awoke, she was telling the children a 
story. And what story did she tell them? One story 
she told them, which begins every Christmas Eve, and 
yet never ends at all for ever and ever; and, as she 


118 





BUT SHE TOOK TOM IN HER ARMS 


went on, the children took their thumbs out of their 
mouths and listened quite seriously; but not sadly at 
all; for she never told them anything sad; and Tom 
listened too, and never grew tired of listening. And 
he listened so long that he fell fast asleep again, and, 
when he awoke, the lady was nursing him still. 

“Don’t go away,” said little Tom. “This is so 
nice. I never had anyone to cuddle me before.” 

“ Don’t go away,” said all the children; “ you have 
not sung us one song.” 

“Well, I have only time for one. So what shall 



“ The doll you lost! The doll you lost! ” cried all 
the babies at once. 

So the strange fairy sang: 

I once had a sweet little doll, dears. 

The prettiest doll in the world ; 

Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears. 

And her hair so charmingly curled. 

But I lost my poor little doll, dears, 

As I played in the heath one day ; 

And I cried for her more than a week, dears, 

But I never could find where she lay. 

I found my poor little doll, dears. 

As I played in the heath one day : 

Folks say she is terribly changed, dears. 

For her paint is all washed away, 

And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears. 

And her hair not the least bit curled : 

Yet for old sakes’ sake she is still, dears, 

The prettiest doll in the world. 

What a silly song for a fairy to sing! 

And what silly water-babies to be quite delighted 
by it! 

“ Now,” said the fairy, “ will you be a good boy for 
my sake, and torment no more sea-beasts till I come 
back?” 

“ And you will cuddle me again? ” said poor little 
Tom. 

“Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to 
take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I 
must not ; ” and away she went. 


120 


So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented 
no more sea-beasts after that as long as he lived ; and 
he is quite alive, I assure you. 

Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind 
pussy mammas to cuddle them* and tell them stories; 
and how afraid they ought to he of growing naughty, 
and bringing tears to their mamma’s pretty eyes! 


121 


CHAPTER VI 


Here I come to the very saddest part of all my 
story. You may fancy that Tom was quite good, 
when he had everything that he could want or wish; 
but you would be very much mistaken. Being quite 
comfortable is a very good thing; but it does not make 
people good. Indeed, it sometimes makes them 
naughty. And I am very sorry to say that this hap- 
pened to little Tom. For he grew so fond of sea- 
bullseyes and sea-lollipops that his foolish little head 
could think of nothing else: and he was always long- 
ing for more, and wondering when the strange lady 
would come again and give him some, and what she 
would give him, and how much, and whether she 
would give him more than the others. And he thought 
of nothing but lollipops by day, and dreamt of noth- 
ing else by night — and what happened then ? 

That he began to watch the lady to see where she 
kept the sweet things: and began hiding, and sneak- 
ing, and following her about, and pretending to be 
looking the other way, or going after something else, 
till he found out that she kept them in a beautiful 
mother-of-pearl cabinet away in a deep crack of the 
rocks. 


122 


And he longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was 
afraid; and then he longed again, and was less afraid; 
and at last, by continual thinking about it, he longed 
so violently that he was not afraid at all. And one 
night, when all the other children were asleep, and he 
could not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept 
away among the rocks and got to the cabinet, and 
behold! it was open. 

But when he saw all the nice things inside, instead 
of being delighted, he was quite frightened, and wished 
he had never come there. And then he would only 
touch them, and he did; and then he would only eat 
one, and he did ; and then he would only eat two, and 
then three, and so on; and then he was terrified lest 
she should come and catch him, and began gobbling 
them down so fast that he did not taste them, nor 
have any pleasure in them; and then only one more 
again; and so on till he had eaten them all up. 

And all the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid. 

Some people may say, But why did she not keep 
her cupboard locked? Well, I know. It may seem a 
very strange thing, but she never does keep her cup- 
board locked; everyone may go and taste for them- 
selves, and fare accordingly. It is very odd; but so 
it is ; and I am sure that she knows best. Perhaps she 
wishes people to keep their fingers out of the fire, by 
having them burned. 

She took off her spectacles because she did not like 
to see too much; and in her pity she arched up her 


123 


eyebrows into her very hair, and her eyes grew so wide 
that they would have taken in all the sorrows of the 
world, and filled with great big tears, as they often do. 

But all she said was : 

“Ah; you poor little dear! you are just like all the 
rest.” 

But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard 
nor saw her. Now you must not fancy that she was 
sentimental at all. If you do, and think she is going 
to let off you, or me, or any other human being when 
we do wrong, because she is too tender-hearted to 
punish us, then you will find yourself very much mis- 
taken. 

But what did the strange fairy do when she saw 
all her lollipops eaten? 

Did she fly at Tom, catch him by the scruff of the 
neck, hold him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit 
him, poke him, pull him, pinch him, pound him, put 
him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a 
cold stone to reconsider himself, and so forth? 

Not a bit. You may watch her at work if you 
know where to find her. But you will never see her 
do that. For, if she had, she knew quite well Tom 
would have fought, and kicked, and bit, and said 
bad words, and turned again that moment into a 
naughty little heathen chimney-sweep. 

Did she question him, hurry him, frighten him, 
threaten him, to make him confess? Not a bit. For, 
if she had, she would have tempted him to tell lies 
in his fright; and that would have been worse for him, 


124 


if possible, than even becoming a heathen chimney- 
sweep again. 

No. She just said nothing at all about the matter, 
not even when Tom came next day with the rest for 
sweet things. He was horribly afraid of staying away, 
lest anyone should suspect him. He was dreadfully 
afraid, too, lest there should be no sweets — as was to 
be expected, he having eaten them all — and lest then 
the fairy should inquire who had taken them. But, 
behold! she pulled out just as many as ever, which 
astonished Tom, and frightened him still more. 

And when the fairy looked him full in the face, he 
shook from head to foot: however, she gave him his 
share like the rest, and he thought within himself that 
she could not have found him out. 

But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he 
hated the taste of them; and they made him so sick 
that he had to get away as fast as he could; and ter- 
ribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all the 
week after. 

Then, when next week came, he had his share again ; 
and again the fairy looked him full in the face; but 
more sadly than she had ever looked. And he could 
not bear the sweets ; but took them in spite of himself. 

And when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he 
wanted to be cuddled like the rest, but she said very 
seriously : 

“ I should like to cuddle you; but I cannot, you are 
so horny and prickly.” 

And Tom looked at himself: and he was all over 


125 


prickles, just like a sea-egg. Which was quite natural; 
for you must know and believe that people’s souls 
make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell. And, 
therefore, when Tom’s soul grew all prickly with 
naughty tempers, his body could not help growing 
prickly, too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play 
with him, or even like to look at him. 

What could Tom do now but go away and hide in 
a corner and cry? For nobody would play with him, 
and he knew full well why. 

And he was so miserable all that week that when 
the ugly fairy came and looked at him once more full 
in the face, more seriously and sadly than ever, he 
could stand it no longer, and thrust the sweetmeats 
away, saying, “No, I don’t want any: I can’t bear 
them now,” and then burst out crying, poor little 
man, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid every word as 
it happened.. 

He was horribly frightened when he had done so; 
for he expected her to punish him very severely. But 
instead, she only took him up and kissed him, which 
was not pleasant, for her chin was very bristly, in- 
deed; but he was so lonely-hearted, he thought that 
rough kissing was better than none. 

“ I will forgive you, little man,” she said. “I al- 
ways forgive everyone the minute they tell me the 
truth of their own accord.” 

“ Then you will take away all these nasty 
prickles? ” 


126 


“ That is a very different matter. You put them 
there yourself, and only you can take them away.” 

“But how can I do that?” asked Tom, crying 
afresh. 

“ Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; 
so I will fetch you a school-mistress, who will teach 
you how to get rid of your prickles.” And so she 
went away. 

Tom was frightened at the notion of a school-mis- 
tress; for he thought she would certainly come with 
a birch-rod or a cane; but he comforted himself, at 
last, that she might be something like the old woman 
in Yendale — which she was not in the least; for, when 
the fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful 
little girl that was ever seen, with long curls floating 
behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating 
all round her like a silver one. 

“ There he is,” said the fairy; “and you must teach 
him to be good, whether you like or not.” 

“ I know,” said the little girl; but she did not seem 
quite to like, for she put her finger in her mouth, and 
looked at Tom under her brows; and Tom put his 
finger in his mouth, and looked at her under his brows, 
for he was horribly ashamed of himself. 

The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin ; 
and perhaps she never would have begun at all if poor 
Tom had not burst out crying, and begged her to teach 
him to be good and help him cure his prickles ; and at 
that she grew so tender-hearted that she began teach- 


127 



-UtWLrtHfH ##• 


ih // v%a 


llUllilV. 


• ; • ' i .V*f? 

S&ifcgg <• v ? ■; N.'~ J&) .vj&> £> • / - 






.'!:<«^«j*/' 






irv'SwvWp*’ 




•*J AA'.'i ' MtfiS ■*< ilA f'Kititn: .*-•-• < J 


THERE HE IS,” 


SAID THE 


fairy; 

GOOD 


“AND YOU MUST TEACH HIM TO BE 

>> 

• • • 


128 







ing him as prettily as ever child was taught in the 
world. 

And what did the little girl teach Tom? She taught 
him, first, what you have been taught ever since you 
said your prayers at your mother’s knees; but she 
taught him much more simply. 

So she taught Tom every day in the week; only on 
Sundays she always went away home, and the kind 
fairy took her place. And before she had taught Tom 
many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite away, 
and his skin was smooth and clean again. 

“ Dear me! ” said the little girl; “ why, I know you 
now. You are the same little chimney-sweep who 
came into my bed-room.” 

“ Dear me! ” cried Tom. “And I know you, too, 
now. You are the very little white lady whom I saw 
in bed.” And he jumped at her, and longed to hug 
and kiss her; but he did not, remembering that she 
was a lady born; so he only jumped round and round 
her till he was quite tired. 

And then they began telling each other all their 
story — how he had got into the water, and she had 
fallen over the rock; and how he had swum down to 
the sea, and how she had flown out of the window; 
and how this, that, and the other, till it was all talked 
out : and then they both began over again, and I can’t 
say which of the two talked fastest. 

And then they set to work at their lessons again, 
and both liked them so well that they went on till 
seven full years were past and gone. 


129 


You may fancy that Tom was quite content and 
happy all those seven years; but the truth is he was 
not. He had always one thing on his mind, and that 
was — where little Ellie went, when she went home on 
Sundays. 

“ To a very beautiful place/’ she said. 

But what was the beautiful place like, and where 
was it ? 

Ah! that was just what she could not say. And it is 
strange, but true, that no one can say; and that 
those who have been oftenest in it, or even nearest to 
it, can say least about it, and make people understand 
least what it is like. There are a great many folks 
about the Other-end-of-Nowhere (where Tom went 
afterwards), who pretend to know it from north to 
south as well as if they had been penny postmen there ; 
but as they are safe at the Other-end-of -Nowhere, nine 
hundred and ninety-nine million miles away, what 
they say cannot concern us. 

But the dear, sweet, loving, wise, good, self-sacrific- 
ing people, who really go there, can never tell you 
anything about it, save that it is the most beautiful 
place in the world; and, if you ask them more, they 
grow modest and hold their peace, for fear of being 
laughed at ; and quite right they are. 

So all that good little Ellie could say was, that it 
was worth all the rest of the world put together. And 
of course that only made Tom the more anxious to go 
likewise. 

“ Miss Ellie,” he said at last, “ I will know why 


130 


I cannot go with you when you go home on Sundays, 
or I shall have no peace, and give you none either.” 

“You must ask the fairies that.” 

So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came 
next, Tom asked her. 

“ Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts 
cannot go there,” she said. “ Those who go there must 
first go where they do not like, and do what they do 
not like, and help somebody they do not like.” 

“ Why, did Elbe do that?” 

“ Ask her.” 

And Elbe blushed and said, “ Yes, Tom; I did not 
like coming here at first; I was so much happier at 
home, where it is always Sunday. And I was afraid 
of you, Tom, at first, because — because — ” 

“ Because I was all over prickles? But I am not 
prickly now, am I, Miss Elbe? ” 

“No,” said Elbe. “I like you very much now; 
and I like coming here, too.” 

“ And, perhaps,” said the fairy, “ you will learn to 
like going where you don’t like, and helping some one 
that you don’t like, as Elbe has.” 

But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his 
head down; for he did not see that at all. 

So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom 
asked her; for he thought in his little head, “ She is 
not so strict as her sister, and perhaps she may let 
me off more easily.” 

Ah, Tom, Tom, silly fellow! and yet I don’t know 


131 


why I should blame you, while so many grown people 
have got the same notion in their heads. 

But, when they try it, they get just the same answer 
as Tom did. For, when he asked the second fairy, she 
told him just what the first did, and in the very same 
words. 

Tom was very unhappy at that. And, when Elbe 
went home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, 
and did not care to listen to the fairy’s stories about 
good children, who did what they did not like, and took 
trouble for other people, and worked to feed their little 
brothers and sisters instead of caring only for play. 
And when she began to tell a story about a holy child 
in old times, who was martyred by the heathen because 
it would not worship idols, Tom could bear no more, 
but ran away and hid among the rocks. 

And, when Elbe came back, he was shy with her, 
because he fancied she looked down on him, and 
thought him a coward. And then he grew quite cross 
with her, because she was superior to him, and did 
what he could not do. And poor Elbe was quite sur- 
prised and sad; and at last Tom burst out crying; 
but he would not tell her what was really in his mind. 

And all the while he was eaten up with curiosity to 
know where Elbe went to; so that he began not to 
care for his playmates, or for the sea-palace or any- 
thing else. But perhaps that made matters all the 
easier for him ; for he grew so discontented with every- 
thing round him that he did not care to stay, and did 
not care where he went. 


132 


“ Well,” he said, at last, “ I am so miserable here, 
I'll go; if only you will go with me? ” 

“Ah!” said Ellie, “I wish I might go; but the 
worst of it is, that the fairy says that you must go 
alone if you go at all. Now don’t poke that poor 
crab about, Tom,” (for he was feeling very naughty 
and mischievous), “or the fairy will have to punish 
you.” 

Tom was very nearly saying, “ I don’t care if she 
does ; ” but he stopped himself in time. 

“ I know what she wants me to do,” he said, whin- 
ing most dolefully. “ She wants me to go after that 
horrid old Grimes. I don’t like him, that’s certain. 
And if I find him, he will turn me into a chimney- 
sweep again, I know. That’s what I’ve been afraid 
of all along.” 

“ No, he won’t — I know as much as that. Nobody 
can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them at all, 
as long as they are good.” 

“ Ah,” said naughty Tom, “ I see what you want; 
you are persuading me all along to go, because you are 
tired of me, and want to get rid of me.” 

Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and 
they were all brimming over with tears. 

“ Oh, Tom, Tom! ” she said, very mournfully — and 
then she cried, “ Oh, Tom! where are you? ” 

And Tom cried, “ Oh, Ellie, where are you? ” 

For neither of them could see each other — not the 
least. Little Ellie had vanished quite away, and Tom 
heard her voice calling him, and growing smaller 


133 


and smaller, and fainter and fainter, till at last all 
was silent. 

Who was frightened then but Tom? He swam 
up and down among the rocks, into all the halls and 
chambers, faster than ever he swam before, but he 
could not find her. He shouted after her, but she did 
not answer; he asked all the other children, but they 
had not seen her; at last he went up to the top of 
the water and began crying and screaming for Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid — which perhaps was the best thing 
to do — for she came in a moment. 

“Oh!” said Tom. “Oh dear, oh dear! I know 
I’ve been naughty to Elbe, and I have killed her — I 
know I have killed her.” 

“ Not quite that,” said the fairy, “ but I have sent 
her away home, and she will not come back again for I 
do not know how long.” 

And at that Tom cried so bitterly that the salt sea 
was swelled with his tears, and the tide was .3,954,620,- 
919 of an inch higher than it had been the day before: 
but perhaps that was due to the waxing of the moon. 

“How cruel of you to send Ellie away!” sobbed 
Tom. “ However, I will find her again, if I go to 
the world’s end to look for her.” 

The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his 
tongue: but she took him on her lap very kindly, just 
as her sister would have done; and put him in mind 
how it was not her fault, because she was wound up 
inside like watches, and could not help doing things 
whether she liked or not.' And then she told him how 


134 


he had been in the nursery long enough, and must go 
out now and see the world, if he intended ever to be 
a man; and how he must go all alone by himself, as 
everyone else that ever was born has to go, and see 
with his own eyes, and smell with his own nose, and 
make his own bed and lie on it, and burn his own 
fingers if lie put them into the fire. 

And then she told him how many fine things there 
were in the world, and what an odd, curious, pleasant, 
orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, on the whole, 
successful sort of a place it was, if people would only 
be tolerably brave and honest and good in it; and 
then she told him not to be afraid of anything he met, 
for nothing would harm him if he remembered all his 
lessons, and did what he knew was right. And at last 
she comforted poor little Tom so much that he was 
quite eager to go, and wanted to set out that minute. 

“ Only,” he said, “ if I might see Ellie once before 
I went! ” 

“ Why do you want that? ” 

“ Because — because I should be so much happier if I 
thought she had forgiven me.” 

And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, 
smiling and looking so happy that Tom longed to 
kiss her; but was still afraid it would not be respect- 
ful, because she was a lady born. 

“ I am going, Ellie! ” said Tom. “ I am going, if 
it is to the world’s end. But I don’t like going at 
all, and that’s the truth.” 

“Pooh! pooh! pooh!” said the fairy. “You will 


135 


like it very well indeed, you little rogue, and you know 
that at the bottom of your heart. But if you don’t, I 
will make you like it. Come here, and see what hap- 
pens to people who do only what is pleasant.” 

And she took out of one of her cupboards (she had 
all sorts of mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the 
rocks), the most wonderful waterproof book, full of 
such photographs as never were seen. For she had 
found out photography (and this is a fact) more than 
13,598,000 years before anyone was born; and what 
is more, her photographs did not merely represent 
light and shade, as ours do, but color also, and there- 
fore her photographs were very curious and famous, 
and the children looked with great delight for the 
opening of the book. 

And on the title page was written, “ The History 
of the great and famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, 
who came away from the country of Hardwork, be- 
cause they wanted to play on the Jews’ harp all day 
long.” 

In the first picture they saw these Doasyoulikes liv- 
ing in the land of Readymade, at the foot of the 
Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodles grow 
wild. Instead of houses they lived in beautiful caves 
of tufa, and bathed in the warm springs three times a 
day; and, as for clothes, it was so warm that the gen- 
tlemen walked about in little beside a cocked hat and 
a pair of straps, or some light summer tackle of that 
kind; and the ladies all gathered gossamer in the au- 


136 


tumn (when they were not too lazy) to make their 
winter dresses. 

They were very fond of music, but it was too much 
trouble to learn to play the piano or violin; and as 
for dancing, that would have been too great an ex- 
ertion. And they sat under the flapdoodle trees, and 
let the flapdoodle drop into their mouths; and under 
the vines, and squeezed the grape juice down their 
throats ; and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted, 
crying, “ Come and eat me! ” as was their custom in 
that country, they waited till the pigs ran against their 
mouths, and then took a bite, and were content, jVist 
as so many oysters would have been. 

They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came 
near their land; and no tools, for everything was 
ready-made to their hand; and the stern old fairy 
Necessity never came near them to hunt them up, and 
make them use their wits, or die. 

And so on, and so on, and so on, till there never 
were such comfortable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky 
people in the world. 

“ Well, that is a jolly life,’’ said Tom. 

“You think so? ” said the fairy. “Do you see that 
great peaked mountain there behind,” said the fairy, 
“ with smoke coming out of its top? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and cin- 
ders lying about? ” 

“ Yes.” 


137 


“ Then turn over the next five hundred years, and 
you will see what happens next.” 

And behold the mountain had blown up like a bar- 
rel of gunpowder, and then boiled over like a kettle; 
whereby one-third of the Doasyoulikes were blown 
into the air, and another third were smothered in 
ashes ; so that there was only one-third left. 

“ You see,” said the fairy, “ what comes of living 
on a burning mountain.” 

“ Oh, why did you not warn them? ” said little 
Elbe. 

V I did warn them all I could. I let the smoke 
come out of the mountain ; and wherever there is smoke 
there is fire. And I laid the ashes and cinders all 
about; and wherever there are cinders, cinders may 
be again. But they do not like to face facts, my dears ; 
and so they invented a cock-and-bull story, which, I 
am sure, I never told them, that the smoke was the 
breath of a giant, whom some of the gods or other had 
buried under the mountain ; and that the cinders were 
what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs whole with ; and 
other nonsense of that kind. And, when folks are in 
that humor, I cannot teach them, save by the good old 
birch-rod.” 

And then she turned over the next five hundred 
years: and there were the remnants of the Doasyou- 
likes, doing as they liked, as before. They were too 
lazy to move away from the mountain; so they said, 
“If it has blown up once, that is all the more reason 
that it should not blow up again.” And they were 


138 


few in number : but they only said, “ The more the mer- 
rier, but the fewer the better fare.” However, that 
was not quite true; for all the flapdoodle trees were 
killed by the volcano, and they had eaten all the roast 
pigs. So they had to live very hard, on nuts and roots, 
which they scratched out of the ground with sticks. 
Some of them talked of sowing corn, as their ances- 
tors had used to do, before they came into the land of 
Readymade, but they had forgotten how to make 
ploughs, and had eaten all the seed-corn which they 
had brought out of the land of Hard work years since ; 
and, of course, it was too much trouble to go away 
and find more. So they all lived miserably on nuts 
and roots. 

“ Why,” said Tom, “ they are growing no better 
than savages.” 

“ And look how ugly they are getting,” said Elbe. 

Then the fairy turned over the next , five hundred 
years. And there they were all living up in trees, and 
making nests to keep off the rain. And underneath 
the trees lions were prowling about. 

“ Why,” said Elbe, “ the lions seem to have eaten 
a good many of them, for there are so few left now.” 

“Yes,” said the fairy; “you see it was only the 
strongest and most active ones who could climb the 
trees, and so escape.” 

“ But what great hulking, broad-shouldered chaps 
they are,” said Tom; “ they are as rough a lot as ever 
I saw.” 

“ Yes, they are getting very strong now.” And 


139 


she turned over the next five hundred years. And in 
that they were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer; 
but their feet had changed shape very oddly, for they 
laid hold of the branches with their great toes, as if 
they had been thumbs, just as a Hindoo tailor uses 
his toes to thread his needle. 

“ Yes and no,” she said, smiling. “It was only 
those who could use their feet as well as their hands 
who could get a living; so they got the best of every- 
thing, and starved out all the rest.” 

“ But there is a hairy one among them,” said little 
Elbe. 

“ Ah! ” said the fairy, “ that will be a great man in 
his time, and chief of all the tribe.” 

And when she turned over the next five hundred 
years, it w r as true. 

Then the fairy turned over another five hundred 
years. And they were fewer still. 

“ Why there is one on the ground picking up roots,” 
said Elbe, “ and he cannot walk upright.” 

No more could he; for in the same way the shape 
of their feet had altered, the shape of their backs had 
altered also. 

“ Why,” cried Tom, “ I declare they are all apes.” 

“ Something fearfully like it, poor foolish crea- 
tures,” said the fairy. “ They are grown so stupid 
now, that they can hardly think: for none of them have 
used their wits for many hundred years. I am afraid 
they will all be apes very soon, and all by doing only 
what they liked.” 


140 


And in the next five hundred years they were all 
dead and gone, by bad food, and wild beasts and hunt- 
ers. And that was the end of the great and jolly na- 
tion of the Doasyoulikes. And when Tom and Elbe 
came to the end of the book, they looked very sad and 
solemn. 

“ But could you not have saved them from becom- 
ing apes?” said little Elbe, at last. 

“ At first, my dear; if only they would have behaved 
like men, and set to work to do what they did not like. 
But the longer they waited, and behaved like dumb 
beasts, who only do what they like, the stupider and 
clumsier they grew ; till at last they were past all cure, 
for they had thrown their own wits away. It is such 
things as this that help to make me so ugly, that I 
know not when I shall grow fair.” 

“ And where are they all now? ” asked Ellie. 

“ Exactly where they ought to be, my dear.” 

“ Yes! ” said the fairy, solemnly, half to herself, as 
she closed the wonderful book. “ Folks say now that 
I can make beasts into men. Well, perhaps, they 
are right. That is one of the seven things I am for- 
bidden to tell, till the coming of the Cocqcigrues ; and 
at all events it is no concern of theirs. But let them 
recollect this: if I can turn beasts into men, I can, 
by the same laws, turn men into beasts. You came 
very near being turned into a beast once or twice, lit- 
tle Tom. Indeed, if you had not made up your mind 
to go on this journey, and see the world, like an Eng- 


141 


lishman, I am not sure but that you would have ended 
as an eft in a pond.” 

“ Oh, dear me! ” said Tom; “ sooner than that, and 
be all over slime, I’ll go this minute, if it is to the 
world’s end.” 

“And Nature, the old Nurse, took 
The child upon her knee, 

Saying, ‘Here is a story book 
Thy father hath written for thee. 

“‘Come wander with me,’ she said, 

‘ Into regions yet untrod, 

And read what is still unread 
In the manuscripts of God.’ 

“And he wandered away and away 
With Nature, the dear old Nurse, 

* Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe.” 

— Longfellow. 


142 


CHAPTER VII 


“ Now,” said Tom, “ I am ready to be off, if it’s 
to the world’s end.” 

“ Ah! ” said the fairy, “ that is a brave, good boy. 
But you must go further than the world’s end, if you 
want to find Air. Grimes; for he is at the Other-end- 
of-Nowhere. You must go to the Shiny Wall, and 
through the white gate that was never opened; and 
then you will come to the Peacepool, and Mother 
Carey ’*s Haven, where the good whales go when they 
die. And there Mother Carey will tell you the way 
to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find 
Mr. Grimes.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” said Tom. “ But I do not know my 
way to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.” 

“ Little hoys must take the trouble to find out things 
for themselves, or they will never grow to be men; so 
that you must ask all the beasts in the sea and the 
birds in the air, and if you have been good to them, 
some of them will tell you the way to Shiny Wall.” 

“ Well,” said Tom, “ it will be a long journey, so 
I had better start at once. Good-bye, Miss Elbe; you 
know I am getting a big boy now, and I must go out 
and see the world.” 


143 


“ I know you must,” said Ellie; “ but you will not 
forget me, Tom. I shall wait here till you come.” 

And she shook hands with him, and bade him good- 
bye. Tom longed again very much to kiss her ; but he 
thought it would not be respectful, considering she 
was a lady born ; so he promised not to forget her : but 
his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion 
of going out to see the world, that it forgot her in five 
minutes. However, though his head forgot her, I am 
glad to say his heart did not. 

So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the 
birds in the air, but none of them knew the way to 
Shiny Wall. For why? He was still too far south. 

Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen 
— a gallant ocean steamer, with a cloud of smoke trail- 
ing behind; and he wondered how she went on with- 
out sails, and he swam up to her to see. A school of 
dolphins were running races round and round her, 
going three feet for her one, and Tom asked them the 
way to Shiny Wall: but they did not know. Then he 
tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw 
her screw, and was so delighted with it that he played 
under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose 
knocked off by the fans, and thought it time to move. 
Then he watched the sailors up on deck, and the ladies 
with their bonnets and parasols: but none of them 
could see him. 

At last there came into the quarter gallery a very 
pretty lady, in deep black widow’s weeds, and in her 
arms a baby. She leaned over the quarter gallery, and 


144 


looked back and back toward England far away; and 
as she looked she sang: 

“Soft, soft wind, from out the sweet south sliding, 

Waft thy silver cloud- webs athwart the summer sea; 

Thin, thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining 

Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me. 

“Deep, deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding, 

Pour thyself abroad, 0 Lord, on earth and air and sea: 

Worn, weary hearts within thy holy temple hiding, 

Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame, my helpless babe and me.” 

Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of 
the air so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it all 
day. But as she held the baby over the gallery rail, 
to show it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling 
in the ship’s wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom! 

He was quite sure of that; for when their eyes met, 
the baby smiled and held out its hands; and Tom 
smiled and held out his hands, too ; and the baby kicked 
and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him. 

“ What do you see, my darling? ” said the lady; and 
her eyes followed the baby’s till she, too, caught sight 
of Tom, swimming about among the foam-beds be- 
low. 

She gave a little shriek and start; then she said 
quite quietly, “Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it 
is the happiest place for them; ” and she waved her 
hand to Tom, and cried, “ Wait a little, darling, only 
a little: and perhaps we shall go with you and be at 
rest.” 


145 


And at that an old nurse, all in black, came out and 
talked to her and drew her in. And Tom turned 
away northward, sad and wondering; and watched 
the great steamer slide away into the dusk, and the 
lights on board peep out one by one, and die out again, 
and the long bar of smoke fade away into the evening 
mist, till all was out of sight. 

And he swam northward again, day after day, till 
at last he met the King of the Herrings, with a curry- 
comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat in his 
mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny 
Wall; so he bolted his sprat head foremost, and said: 

“ If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to 
the Allalonestone, and ask the last of the Gairfowl. 
She is of very ancient clan, nearly as ancient as my 
own ; and knows a good deal which these modern up- 
starts don’t.” 

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Her- 
rings told him very kindly, for he was a courteous 
old gentleman of the old school, though he was hor- 
ribly ugly. 

But just as Tom thanked him and set off, he called 
after him: “ Hi! I say, can you fly? ” 

“ I never tried/’ says Tom. “ Why? ” 

“ Because, if you can, I should advise you to say 
nothing to the old lady about it. There, take a hint. 
Good-bye.” 

And away Tom went for seven days and seven 
nights, due north-west, till he came to a great cod- 
bank, the like of which he had never seen before. The 


146 


great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled 
shell-fish all day long ; and the blue sharks roved about 
in hundreds, and gobbled them when they came up. 
So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had 
done since the making of the world; for no man had 
come here yet to catch them, and find out how rich old 
M other Carey is. 

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing 
upon the Allalonestone, all alone. And a very grand 
old lady she was, full three feet high, and bolt up- 
right, like some old Highland chieftainess. She had 
on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, 
and a very high bridge to her nose, and a large pair 
of white spectacles on it which made her look rather 
odd: but it was the ancient fashion of her house. 

And, instead of wings, she had two little feathery 
arms, with which she fanned herself, and complained 
of the dreadful heat: and she kept crooning an old 
song to herself, which she had learnt when she was a 
little baby-bird, long ago: 

“Two little birds they sat on a stone, 

One swam away, and then there was one, 

With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

“The other swam after, and then there was none; 

And so the poor stone was left all alone; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady.” 

It was “ flew ” away, properly, and not “ swam ” 
away: but, as she could not fly, she had a right to 
alter it. 


147 


Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his 
bow; and the first thing she said was: 

“ Have you wings? Can you fly? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no, ma’am: I should not think of such 
a thing,” said cunning little Tom. 

“ Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to 
you, my dear. It is quite refreshing nowadays to see 
anybody without wings. In the days of my ancestors 
no birds ever thought of having wings, and did very 
well without ; and now they all laugh at me because I 
keep to the good old fashion.” 

And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get 
a word in edgeways; and at last he did, when the old 
lady got out of breath, and began fanning herself 
again; and then he asked if she knew the way to the 
Shiny Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall? Who should know better than I? 
We all came from the Shiny Wall, thousands of years 
ago, when it was decently cold, and the climate was 
fit for gentlefolk; but now, what with the heat, and 
what with those vulgar, winged things who fly up and 
down and eat everything, so that gentlepeople’s hunt- 
ing is all spoilt and one really cannot get one’s living, 
or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown 
against by some creature that would not have dared 
to come within a mile of one a thousand years ago — 
what was I saying? Why, we have quite gone down 
in the world, my dear, and have nothing left but our 
honor. And I am the last of my family. A friend 


148 


of mine and I came and settled on this rock when we 
were young, to be out of the way of low people. 

“ Once we were a great nation, and spread over all 
the Northern Isles. But men shot us so, and knocked 
us on the head, and took our eggs — why, if you will 
believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the 
sailors used to lay a plank from the rock on board the 
thing called their ship, and drive us along the plank 
by hundreds, till we tumbled down into the ship’s waist 
in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate us, nasty fel- 
lows! Well — but — what was I saying? At last, there 
w r ere none of us left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, 
just off the Iceland coast, up which no man could 
climb. Even there we had no peace ; for one day, when 
I was quite a young girl, the land rocked and the sea 
boiled, and the sky grew dark, and all the air was 
filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled the old 
Gairfowlskerry into the sea. The dovekies and mar- 
rocks, of course, all flew away ; but we were too proud 
to do that. Some of us were dashed to pieces and 
some drowned; and those who were left got away to 
Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, 
and that another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the 
sea close to the old one, but that it is such a poor flat 
place that it is not safe to live on: and so here I am 
left all alone.” 

This was the Gairf owl’s story, and strange as it may 
seem, it is every word true. 

“If you only had had wings!” said Tom, “then 


149 



AND THE POOR OLD GAIRFOWL BEGAN TO CRY TEARS OF PURE OIL . . . 


you might have all flown away, too. But please, which 
is the way to Shiny Wall? ” 

“ Oh, you must go, my little dear — you must go. 
Let me see — I am sure — that is — really, my poor old 
brains are getting quite puzzled. Do you know, my 
little dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you must 
ask some of these vulgar birds about, for I have quite 
forgotten.” 

And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of 
pure oil; and Tom was quite sorry for her; and for 
himself, too, for he was at his wit’s end whom to .ask. 

By and by there came a flock of petrels, who are 


150 


Mother Carey’s own chickens ; and Tom thought them 
much prettier than Lady Gairfowl, and perhaps they 
were ; for Mother Carey had had a great deal of fresh 
experience between the time that she invented the 
Gairfowl and the time she invented them. They 
flitted along like a flock of black swallows, and hopped 
and skipped from wavfc to wave, lifting their little 
feet behind them so daintily, and whistling to each 
other so tenderly, that Tom fell in love with them at 
once, and called to them to know the way to Shiny 
Wall. 

“ Shiny Wall? Do you want Shiny Wall? Then 
come with us, and we will show you. We are Mother 
Carey’s own chickens, and she sends us out over all 
the seas, to show the good birds the way home.” 

Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after 
he had made his bow to the Gairfowl. But she would 
not return his bow : but held herself bolt upright, and 
wept tears of oil as she sang: 

“And so the poor stone was left all alone; 

With a fal-lal-1 a-lady.” 

But she was wrong there; for the stone was not 
left all alone: and the next time that Tom goes by 
it, he will see a sight worth seeing. 

The old Gairfowl is gone already: but there are 
better things come in her place ; and when Tom comes 
he will see the fishing-smacks anchored there in hun- 
dreds. And the men will be hauling in the great cod 
by thousands, till their hands are sore from the lines ; 


151 


and they will be making cod-liver oil and guano, and 
salting down the fish; and there will be a man-of-war 
steamer there to protect them, and a lighthouse to 
show them the way. 

“The old order changeth, giving place to new, 

And God fulfills himself in many ways.” 

And now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny 
Wall; but the petrels said no. They must first go to 
Allfowlsness, and wait there for the great gathering 
of all the sea-birds, before they start for their summer 
breeding- places far away in the Northern Isles; and 
there they would be sure to find some birds which were 
going to Shiny Wall; but where Allfowlsness was, 
he must promise never to tell, lest men should go there 
and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into 
stupid museums, instead of leaving them to play and 
breed and work in Mother Carey’s water-garden, 
where they ought to be. 

So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and all 
that is to be said about it is, that Tom waited there 
many days; and as he waited, he saw a very curious 
sight. On the rabbit burrows on the shore there gath- 
ered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie-crows. And 
they made such a noise, that Tom came up on shore 
and went to see what was the matter. 

And there he found them holding their great caucus, 
which they hold every year in the North. And they 
cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the clever things 
they had done : how many lambs’ eyes they had picked 


152 


out, and how many dead bullocks they had eaten, and 
how many young grouse they had swallowed whole, 
and how many grouse-eggs they had flown away with, 
stuck on the points of their bills. 

At last they brought out the prettiest, neatest young 
lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in the middle, 
and all began abusing, and vilifying, and rating, and 
bullyragging at her, because she had stolen no grouse- 
eggs, and had actually dared to say she would not 
steal any. So she was to be tried publicly by their 
laws (for the hoodies always try some offenders in 
their great yearly parliament). And there she stood 
in the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, look- 
ing as meek and neat as a Quakeress, and they all 
bawled at her at once. 

And it was in vain that she pleaded: 

That she did not like grouse-eggs; 

That she could get her living very well without them; 

That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the game- 
keepers ; 

That she had not the heart to eat them, because the 
grouse were such pretty, kind, jolly birds; 

And a dozen reasons more. 

For all that the scaul-crows set upon her, and pecked 
her to death there and then, before Tom could come 
to her help ; and then flew away, very proud of what 
they had done. 

Now was not this a scandalous transaction? 

But the fairies took the good crow, and gave her 
nine new sets of feathers running, and turned her at 


153 


last into the most beautiful bird of paradise with a 
green velvet suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat 
fruit in the Spice Islands, where the cloves and nut- 
megs grow. 

And Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account 
with the wicked hoodies. For, as they flew away, what 
should they find but a nasty dead dog? — on which 
they all set to work, pecking and gobbling and cawing 
and quarreling to their hearts’ content. But the mo- 
ment afterwards, they all threw up their bills into the 
air, and gave one screech; and then turned head over 
heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and 
twenty-three of them at once. For why? The fairy 
had told the gamekeeper in a dream to fill the dead 
dog full of strychnine; and so he did. 

And after a while the birds began to gather at All- 
fowlsness, in thousands and tens of thousands, black- 
ening the air; and they paddled and washed and 
splashed and combed and brushed themselves on the 
sand, till the shore was white with feathers; and they 
quacked and clucked and gabbled and chattered and 
screamed and whooped as they talked over matters 
with their friends, and settled where they were to go 
and breed that summer, till you might have heard them 
ten miles off. 

Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether 
they would take Tom to Shiny Wall: but one set was 
going to Sutherland, and one to the Shetlands, and 
one to Norway, and one to Spitzbergen, and one to 
Iceland, and one to Greenland : but none would go to 


154 


Shiny Wall. So the good-natured petrels said they 
would show him part of the way themselves, but they 
were only going as far as Jan Mayen’s Land; and 
after that he must shift for himself. 

And then all the birds rose up and streamed away 
in long black lines, north and northeast, north and 
northwest, across the bright blue summer sky; and 
their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds and 
ten thousand peals of bells. Only the puffins stayed 
behind, and killed the young rabbits, and laid their 
eggs in the rabbit burrows. 

And, as Tom and the petrels went northeastward, it 
began to blow right hard; for the old gentleman in the 
gray great coat, who looks after the big copper boiler 
in the Gulf of Mexico, had got behindhand with his 
work; so Mother Carey had sent an electric message 
to him for more steam; and now the steam was com- 
ing, as much in an hour as ought to have come in a 
week, puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling, 
till you could not see where the sky ended and the sea 
began. But Tom and the petrels never cared, for the 
gale was right abaft, and away they went over the 
crests of the billows, as merry as so many flying-fish. 

And at last they came to an ugly sight — the black 
side of a great ship, water-logged in the trough of the 
sea. Her funnel and her masts were overboard, and 
swayed and surged under her lee; her decks were 
swept as clean as a barn floor, and there was no living 
soul on board. 

The petrels flew up to her, and wailed round her; 


155 


for they were very sorry, indeed, and also they ex- 
pected to find some salt pork; and Tom scrambled on 
hoard of her and looked round, frightened and sad. 

And there, in a little cot, lashed tight under the bul- 
wark, lay a baby fast asleep ; the very same baby, Tom 
saw at once, which he had seen in the singing lady’s 
arms. 

He went up to it, and wanted to wake it; but be- 
hold, from under the cot jumped a little black and tan 
terrier dog, and began barking and snapping at Tom, 
and would not let him touch the cot. 

Tom knew the dog’s teeth could not hurt him: but 
at least it could shove him away, and did ; and he and 
the dog fought and struggled, for he wanted to help 
the baby, and did not want to throw the poor dog over- 
board; but, as they were struggling, there came a 
tall green sea, and walked in over the weather side of 
the ship, and swept them all into the waves. 

“ Oh, the baby, the baby! ” screamed Tom: but the 
next moment he did not scream at all; for he saw the 
cot settling down through the green water, with 
the baby, smiling in it, fast asleep; and he saw the 
fairies come up from below, and carry baby and cradle 
gently down in their soft arms; and he knew that it 
was all right, and that there would be a new water- 
baby in St. Brandan’s Isle. 

And the poor little dog? 

Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he 
sneezed so hard that he sneezed himself clean out of his 
skin, and turned into a water-dog, and jumped and 


156 


danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the 
waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, 
and followed Tom the whole way to the Other-end- 
of -No where. 



. . . HE SAW THE FAIRIES COME UP FROM BELOW . . . 


Then they went on again till they began to see the 
peak of Jan Mayen’s Land, standing up like a white 
sugar-loaf, two miles above the clouds. 

And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly- 
mocks, who were feeding on a dead whale. 

“ These are the fellows to show you the way,” said 


157 


Mother Carey’s chickens ; “we cannot help you far- 
ther north. We don’t like to get among the ice pack 
for fear it should nip our toes: but the mollys dare 
fly anywhere.” 

So the petrels called to the mollys : but they were so 
busy and greedy, gobbling and pecking and splutter- 
ing and fighting over the blubber, that they did not 
take the least notice. 

“ Come, come,” said the petrels, “ you lazy greedy 
lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother 
Carey, and, if you don’t attend on him, you won’t 
earn your discharge from her, you know.” 

“ Greedy we are,” says a fat old molly, “ but lazy 
we ain’t; and as for lubbers, we’re no more lubbers 
than you. Let’s have a look at the lad.” 

And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared 
at him in the most impudent way (for mollys are 
audacious fellows, as all whalers know), and then 
asked him where he hailed from, and what land he 
sighted last. 

And when. Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and 
said he was a good plucked one to have got so far. 

“ Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, “ and give 
this little chap a cast over the pack, for Mother 
Carey’s sake. We’ve eaten blubber enough for to- 
day, and we’ll e’en work out a bit of our time by help- 
ing the lad.” 

So the mollys took Tom on their backs, and flew off ' 
with him, laughing and joking — and oh, how they did 
smell of train oil ! 


158 


“ Who are you, you jolly birds? ” asked Tom. 

“ We are spirits of the Greenland skippers (as 
every sailor knows) , who hunted here, right whales and 
horse-whales, full hundreds of years agone. But, be- 
cause we were saucy and greedy, we were all turned 
into mollys, to eat whale’s blubber all our days. But 
lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against 
any man in the N orth seas, though we don’t hold with 
this new-fangled steam. Ah, it’s a shame of those 
black imps of petrels to call us so ; but because they’re 
her grace’s pets, they think they may say anything 
they like.” 

“And who are you?” asked Tom of him, for he 
saw he was the king of all the birds. 

“ My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good 
skipper was I; and my name will last to the world’s 
end, in spite of all the wrong I did. F or I discovered 
the Hudson River and I n^med Hudson’s Bay; and 
many have come in my wake who dared not have 
shown me the way. But I was a hard man in my 
time, that’s truth, and stole the poor Indians off the 
coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in Vir- 
ginia ; and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here in 
these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open boat, 
and I never was heard of more. So now I’m the king 
of all mollys, till I’ve worked out my time.” 

And now they came to the edge of the pack, and 
beyond it they could see Shiny Wall looming through 
the mist, and snow, and storm. But the pack 
rolled horribly upon the swell, and the ice-giants 


159 


fought and roared, and leapt upon each other’s backs, 
and ground each other to powder, so that Tom was 
afraid to venture among them, lest he should be 
ground to powder too. And he was the more afraid, 
when he saw lying among the ice pack the wrecks of 
many a gallant ship; some with masts and yards all 
standing, some with the seamen frozen fast on board. 
Alas, alas, for them! They were all true English 
hearts; and they came to their end like knights-er- 
rant, in searching for the white gate that has never 
opened yet. 

But the mollys took Tom and his dog up, and flew 
with them safe over the pack and roaring ice giants, 
and set them down at the foot of Shiny Wall. 

“And where is the gate?” asked Tom. 

“ There is no gate,” said the mollys. 

“No gate? ” cried Tom aghast. 

“ None; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole 
of the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have 
found to their cost; and if there had been, they’d have 
killed by now every right whale that swims in the 
sea.” 

“ What am I to do, then? ” 

“ Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have the 
pluck.” 

“ I’ve not come so far to turn now,” said Tom; 
“ so here goes for a header.” 

“A lucky voyage to you, lad,” said the mollys; 

“ we knew you were one of the right sort. So good- 
bye.” 


160 


“ Why don’t you come too? ” asked Tom. 

But the mollys only wailed sadly, “ We can’t go yet, 
we can’t go yet,” and flew away over the pack. 

So Tom dived under the great white gate which 
never was opened yet, and went on in the black dark- 
ness, at the bottom of the sea, for seven days and 
nights. And yet he was not a bit frightened. Why 
should he be? He was a brave English lad, whose 
business is to go out and see all the world. 

And at last he saw the light, and clear, clear water 
overhead ; and up he came a thousand fathoms, among 
clouds of sea-moths, which fluttered about his head. 
There were moths with pink heads and rings and opal 
bodies, that flapped about slowly; moths with brown 
wings, that flapped about quickly ; yellow shrimps that 
hopped and skipped most quickly of all; and jellies 
of all colors in the world, that neither hopped nor 
skipped, but only dawdled and yawned, and would 
not get out of his way. The dog snapped at them 
till his jaws w r ere tired; but Tom hardly minded them 
at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the water, 
and see the pool where the good whales go. 

And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, 
though the air was so clear that the ice cliffs on the 
opposite side looked as if they w T ere close at hand. All 
round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and spires and bat- 
tlements, and caves and bridges, and stories and gal- 
leries, in which the ice-fairies live, and drive away the 
storms and clouds, that Mother Carey’s pool may lie 
calm from year’s end to year’s end. And the sun 


101 


acted as policeman, and walked round outside every 
day, peeping just over the top of the ice wall, to see 
that all went right; and now and then he played con- 
juring tricks, or had an exhibition of fireworks, to 
amuse the ice-fairies. For he would make himself 
into four or five suns at once, or paint the sky with 
rings and crosses and crescents of white fire, and stick 
himself in the middle of them and wink at the fairies ; 
and I dare say they were very much amused : for any- 
thing’s fun in the country. 

And there the good whales lay, the happy, sleepy 
beasts, upon the still oily sea. They were all right 
whales, you must know, and finners, and razor-backs, 
and bottle-noses, and spotted sea-unicorns with long 
ivory horns. But the sperm whales are such raging, 
ramping, roaring rumbustious fellows, that, if Mother 
Carey let them in, there would be no more peace in 
Peacepool. So she packs them away in a great pond 
by themselves at the South Pole, two hundred and 
sixtjr-three miles south-east of Mount Erebus, the 
great volcano in the ice ; and there they butt each other 
with their ugly noses, day and night, from year’s end 
to year’s end. 

But here there were only good and quiet beasts, 
lying about like the black hulks of sloops and blow- 
ing every now and then jets of white steam, or sculling 
round with their huge mouths open, for the sea-moths 
to swim down their throats. There were no threshers 
there to thresh their poor old backs, nor sword-fish to 
stab their stomachs, nor saw-fish to rip them up, nor 


162 


ice-sharks to bite lumps out of their sides, nor whalers 
to harpoon or lance them. They were quite safe and 
happy there ; and all they had to do was to wait quiet- 
ly in Peacepool till Mother Carey sent for them to 
make them out of old beasts into new. 

Tom swam up to the nearest whale, and asked the 
way to Mother Carey. 

“ There she sits in the middle,” said the whale. 

Tom looked; but he could see nothing in the middle 
of the Pool, but one peaked iceberg; and he said so. 

“ That’s Mother Carey,” said the whale, “ as you 
will find when you get to her. There she sits making 
old beasts into new all the year round.” 

“ How does she do that? ” 

“ That’s her concern, not mine,” said the old whale; 
and yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there 
swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly- 
fish no bigger than pins’ heads, a string of salpae nine 
yards long, and forty-three little ice-crabs, who gave 
each other a parting pinch all round, tucked their legs 
under their stomachs, and determined to die decently, 
like Julius Caesar. 

“ I suppose,” said Tom, “ she cuts up a great whale 
like you into a whole shoal of porpoises? ” 

At which the old whale laughed so violently that 
he coughed up all the creatures, who swam away 
again, very thankful at having escaped out of that 
terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no 
traveler returns; and Tom went on to the iceberg, 
wondering. 


163 


And when he came near it, it took the form of the 
grandest old lady he had ever seen — a white mar- 
ble lady, sitting on a white marble throne. And from 
the foot of the throne there swam away, out and out 
into the sea, millions of new-born creatures, of more 
shapes and colors than man ever dreamed. And they 



were Mother Carey’s children, whom she makes out 
of the sea-water all day long. 

He expected, of course — like some grown people 
who ought to know better — to find her snipping, piec- 
ing, fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting, filing, 


1C4 


planing, hammering, turning, polishing, moulding, 
measuring, chiselling, clipping, and so forth, as men 
do when they go to work to make anything. 

But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her 
chin upon her hand, looking down into the sea with 
great grand blue eyes, as blue as the sea itself. Her 
hair was white as snow — for she was very old — in fact, 
as old as anything you are likely to come across, except 
the difference between right and wrong. 

And, when she saw Tom, she looked at him very 
kindly. 

“ What do you want, my little man? It is a long 
time since I have seen a water-baby here.” 

Tom told her his errand, and asked the way to the 
Other-end-of -N o where. 

“ You ought to know yourself, for you have been 
there already.” 

“ Have I, ma’am? I’m sure I forget all about it.” 

“ Then look at me.” 

And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he 
recollected the way perfectly. 

Now, was not that strange? 

“ Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom. “ Then I won’t 
trouble your ladyship any more; I hear you are very 
busy.” 

“ I am never more busy than I am now,” she said, 
without stirring a finger. 

“ I heard, ma’am, that you were always making new 
beasts out of old.” 

“ So people fancy. But I am not going to trouble 


165 


myself to make things, my little dear. I sit here and 
make them make themselves.” 

“ You are a clever fairy, indeed,” thought Tom. 
And he was quite right. 

“And now, my pretty little man,” said Mother 
Carey, “ you are sure you know the way to the Other- 
end-of -N owhere ?” 

Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it ut- 
terly. 

“ That is because you took your eyes off me.” 

Tom looked at her again, and recollected; and then 
looked away, and forgot in an instant. 

“ But what am I to do, ma’am? For I can’t keep 
looking at you when I’m somewhere else.” 

“ You must do without me, as most people have to 
do, for nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of 
their lives; and look at the dog instead; for he knows 
the way well enough, and will not forget it. Besides, 
you may meet some very queer-tempered people there, 
who will not let you pass without this passport of mine, 
which you must hang round your neck and take care 
of ; and, of course, as the dog will always go behind 
you, you must go the whole way backward.” 

“Backward!” cried Tom. “Then I shall not be 
able to see my way.” 

“On the contrary, if you look forward, you will not 
see a step before you, and be certain to go wrong; but 
if you look behind you, and watch carefully whatever 
you have passed, and especially keep your eye on the 
dog, who goes by instinct, and therefore can’t go 


166 


wrong, then you will know what is coming next, as 
plainly as if you saw it in a looking-glass.” 

Tom was very much astonished: but he obeyed her, 
for he had learnt always to believe what the fairies told 
him. 

And Tom did as he was told. He was very sorely 
tried; for though, by keeping the dog to heels (or 
rather to toes, for he had to walk backward) , he could 
see pretty well which way the dog was hunting, yet it 
was much slower work to go backward, than to go for- 
wards. But, what was more trying still, no sooner 
had he got out of Peacepool than there came running 
to him all sorts of curious folks, all bawling and 
screaming at him, “Look a-head, only look a-head; 
and we will show you what man never saw before, 
and right away to the end of the w r orld!” 

But I am proud to say that he never turned his 
head round once all the way from Peacepool to the 
Other-end-of-Nowhere: but kept his eye on the dog, 
and let him pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or 
crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down dale; by which 
means he never made a single mistake, and saw all 
the wonderful and hitherto by-no-mortal-imagined 
things, which it is my duty to relate to you in the next 
chapter. 


“Come to me, O ye children! 

For I hear you at your play; 

And the questions that perplexed me 
Have vanished quite away. 


167 


“Ye open the Eastern windows, 

That look toward the sun, 

Where thoughts are singing swallows, 
And the brooks of morning run. 

“For what are all our contrivings 
And the wisdom of our books, 

When compared with your caresses. 

And the gladness of your looks? 

“Ye are better than all the ballads 
That were ever sung or said; 

For ye are living poems, 

And all the rest are dead.” 

— Longfellow. 


I 


o 


168 


CHAPTER VIII AND LAST 


Here begins the never-to-be-too-much-studied ac- 
count of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-ninth part of 
the wonderful things which Tom saw on his journey 
to the Other-end-of -Nowhere; which all good little 
children are requested to read; that, if they ever get 
to the Other-end-of-Nowhere, as they may probably 
do, they may not burst out laughing, or try to run 
away, or do any other foolish and vulgar thing which 
may offend Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. 

Now, as soon as Tom had left the Peacepool, he 
came to the white lap of the great sea-mother, ten 
thousand fathoms deep; where she makes world-pap 
all day long, for the steam giants to knead, and the 
fire-giants to bake, till it has risen and hardened into 
mountain-loaves and island-cakes. 

And there Tom was very near being kneaded up in 
the world-pap, and turned into a fossil water-baby. 
For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea-twi- 
light, on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware of 
a hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a pump- 
ing, as if of all the steam-engines in the world at once. 
And, when he came near, the water grew boiling hot; 
not that that hurt him in the least : but it grew as foul 


169 


as gruel; and every moment he stumbled over dead 
shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and whales, 
which had been killed by the hot water. 

And at last he came to the great sea-serpent him- 
self, lying dead at the bottom ; and as he was too thick 
to scramble over, Tom had to walk round him three- 
quarters of a mile and more, which put him out of 
his path sadly; and, when he had got round, he came 
to the place called Stop. And there he stopped, and 
just in time. 

He was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom 
of the sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear 
steam enough to work all the engines in the world at 
once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at mo- 
ments ; and Tom could see almost up to the top of the 
water above, and down below into the pit for nobody 
knows how far. 

But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, he 
got such a rap on the nose from pebbles, that he 
jumped back again; for the steam, as it rushed up, 
rasped away the sides of the hole, and hurled it up 
into the sea in a shower of mud and gravel and ashes ; 
and then it spread all around, and sank again, and 
covered the dead fish so fast, that before Tom had 
stood there five minutes he was buried in silt up to his 
ankles, and began to be afraid that he should have 
been buried alive. 

And perhaps he would have been, but that while he 
was thinking, the whole piece of ground on which he 
stood was torn off and blown upwards, and away flew 


170 


Tom a mile up through the sea, wondering what was 
coming next. 

At last he stopped — thump! and found himself 
tight in the legs of the most wonderful bogy which 
he had ever seen. 

It had I don’t know how many wings, as big as the 
sails of a windmill, and spread out in rings like them ; 
and with them it hovered over the steam which rushed 
up, as a ball hovers over the top of a fountain. And 
for every wing above it had a leg below, with a claw 
like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root ; and in 
the middle it had no stomach and one eye. 

“ What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, 
“ getting in my way? ” and it tried to drop Tom: but 
he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer 
where he was. 

So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand 
was. And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered : 

“ I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are 
come after gold — I know you are.” 

“Gold! What is gold?” And really Tom did not 
know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe 
him. 

But after a while Tom began to understand a little. 
For, as the vapors came up out of the hole, the bogy 
smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and 
sorted them with his combs; and then, when they 
steamed up through them against his wings, they were 
changed into showers and streams of metal. From 


171 



. . . TOM . . . HELD ON TIGHT TO ITS CLAWS . . . 


one wing fell gold-dust, and from another silver, and 
from another copper, and from another tin, and from 
another lead, and so on, and sank into the soft mud, 
into veins and cracks, and hardened there. Whereby 
it comes to pass that the rocks are full of metal. 

But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam 
below, and the hole was empty in an instant; and 
then down rushed the water into the hole, in such 
a whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as 
fast as a teetotum. But that was all in his day’s work; 
so all he did was to say to Tom: 


172 



“ Now is your time, youngster, to get down, if you 
are in earnest, which I don’t believe.” 

“ You’ll soon see,” said Tom ; and away he went, 
as bold as Baron Munchausen, and shot down the 
rushing cataract like a salmon at Ballis-o-dare. 

And when he got to the bottom, he swam till he 
was washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of -No- 
where ; and he found it, to his surprise, as most other 
people do, much more like This-end-of-Somewhere 
than he had been in the habit of expecting. 

And first he went through Waste-paper-land, where 
all the stupid books lie in heaps, up hill and down dale, 
like leaves in a winter wood; and there he saw people 
digging and grubbing among them, to make worse 
books out of bad ones, and thrashing chaff to save the 
dust of it ; and a very good trade they drove thereby, 
especially among children. 

Then he went by the sea of slops, to the mountain 
of messes, and the territory of tuck, where the ground 
was very sticky, for it was all made of bad toffee, and 
full of deep cracks and holes choked with wind- fallen 
fruit, and green gooseberries, and sloes, and crabs, and 
whinberries, and hips and haws, and all the nasty 
things which little children will eat, if they can get 
them. But the fairies hide them out of the way in 
that country as fast as they can, and very hard work 
they have and of very little use it is. For as fast 
as they hide away the old trash, foolish and wicked 
people make fresh trash full of lime and poisonous 
paints and sell them. Very well. Let them go on. 


173 


The fairy with the birch-rod will catch them all in 
time, and make them begirt at one corner of their 
shops, and eat their way out at the other: by which 
time they will have got such stomach-aches as will 
cure them of poisoning little children. 

Next he saw all the little people in the world, writ- 
ing all the little books in the world, about all the other 
little people in the world; probably because they had 
no great people to write about. And all the rest of 
the little people read the books, and thought them- 
selves each as good as the President ; and perhaps they 
were right, for everyone knows his own business best. 
But Tom thought he would sooner have a jolly good 
fairy tale about Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and 
the Beast, which taught him something that he didn’t 
know already. 

Then he passed the centre of Creation and came to 
the Island of Polupragmosyne (which some call 
Rogues’ Harbor). There everyone knows his neigh- 
bor’s business better than his own. 

There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driv- 
ing hammers, birds’ nests taking boys, books making 
authors, bulls keeping china-shops, monkeys shaving 
cats, dead dogs drilling live lions ; and, in short, every- 
one set to do something which he had not learnt, be- 
cause in what he had learnt, or pretended to learn, he 
had failed. 

When he got into the middle of the town, they all 
set upon him at once, to show him his way; or rather, 
to show him that he did not know his way; for, as for 


174 


asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever 
thought of that. 

But one pulled him hither, and another poked him 
thither, and a third cried : 

“ You mustn’t go west, I tell you; it is destruction 
to go west.” 

“ But I am not going west, as you may see,” said 
Tom. 

And another, “ The east lies here, my dear; I as- 
sure you this is east.” 

“ But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom. 

“ Well, then, at all events, whichever way you are 
going, you are going wrong,” cried they all with one 
voice — which was the only thing they ever agreed 
upon ; and all pointed at once to the thirty -two points 
of the compass, till Tom thought all the sign-posts in 
England had got together and fallen fighting. 

And whether he would ever have escaped out of the 
town, it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into 
his head that they were going to pull his master to 
pieces, and tackled them so sharply about the gastroc- 
nemius muscle that he gave them some business of 
their own to think of at last ; and while they were rub- 
bing their bitten calves, Tom and the dog got safe 
away. 

On the borders of that island he found Gotham, 
where the wise men live; the same who dragged the 
pond because the moon had fallen into it; and planted 
a hedge round the cuckoo, to keep spring all the year. 
And he found them bricking up the town gate, be- 


175 


cause it was so wide that little folks could not get 
through. So he went on; for it was no business of 
his: only he -could not help saying that in his country, 
if the kitten could not get in the same hole as the cat, 
she might stay outside and mew. 

But he saw the end of such fellows, when he came 
to the Island of the Golden Asses, where nothing but 
thistles grow. For they were all turned into mokes 
with ears a yard long; and mokes they must remain 
till the thistles develop into roses. 

Then Tom came to the great land of Hearsay ; and 
he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive 
war. And of one thing I am sure : that, unless I told 
you, you would never know how they waged their 
war; for all their strategy and art military consisted 
in the safe and easy process of stopping their ears and 
screaming, “Oh, don’t tell us!” and then running 
away. 

So, when Tom came into that land, he found them 
all, high and low, man, woman, and child, running for 
their lives day and night continually, and entreating 
not to be told they didn’t know what; only the land 
being an island and they having a dislike to the water 
(being a musty lot for the most part), they ran 
round the shore for ever, which (as the island was 
exactly of the same circumference as the planet on 
which we have the honor of living) was hard work, 
especially to those who had business to look after. But 
before them, as bandmaster and bugleman, ran a gen- 
tleman shearing a pig ; the melodious strains of which 


176 


animal led them for ever, if not to conquest, still to 
flight; and kept up their spirits mightily with the 
thought that they would at least have the pig’s wool 
for their pains. 

And running after them, day and night, came such 
a poor, lean, seedy, hard-w T orked old giant, as ought 
to have been cockered up, and had a good dinner given 
him, and a good wife given him, and been set to play 
with the little children: and then he would have been 
a very presentable old fellow, after all; for he had a 
heart, though it was considerably overgrown with 
brains. 

He was made up principally of fish-bones and 
parchment, put together with wire and Canada bal- 
sam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he never 
drank anything but water: but spirits he used some- 
how, there is no denying. He had a great pair of 
spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly net in one hand, 
and a geological hammer in the other; and he was 
hung all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, 
bottles, microscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance 
maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic apparatus, and 
all other tackle for finding out everything about every- 
thing, and a little more, too. And, most strange of 
all, he was running not forwards but backwards, as 
fast as he could. 

Away all the good folks ran from him, except 
Tom, w T ho stood his ground and dodged between his 
legs ; and the giant, when he passed him, looked down, 
and cried, as if he were quite pleased and comforted: 


177 


“What? Who are you? And you actually don’t 
run away, like the rest? ” But he had to take his 
spectacles off, Tom remarked, to see him plainly. 

Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled 
out a bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with. 

But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged be- 
tween his legs and in front of him; and then the giant 
could not see him at all. 

“ No, no, no! ” said Tom; “ I’ve not been round the 
world, and through the world, and up to Mother 
Carey’s Haven, beside being caught in a net and 
called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled 
up by any old giant like you.” 

And when the giant understood what a great trav- 
eller Tom had been, he made a truce with him at 
once, and would have kept him there to this day to 
pick his brains, so delighted was he at finding anyone 
to tell him what he did not know before. 

“ Ah, you lucky little dog ! ” said he at last, quite 
simply, for he was the simplest,- pleasantest, honestest, 
kindliest old giant that ever turned the world upside 
down without intending it — “ ah, you lucky little dog! 
If I had only been where you have been, and seen what 
you have seen ! ” 

“ Well,” said Tom, “ if you want to do that, you 
had best put your head under water for a few hours, 
as I did, and turn into a water-baby, or some other 
baby, and then you might have a chance.” 

“ Turn into a baby, eh? If I could do that, and 
know what was happening to me for but one hour, 


178 


I should know everything then, and be at rest. But 
I can’t ; I can’t be a little child again ; and I suppose 
if I could, it would be no use, because then I should 
know nothing about what was happening to me. Ah, 
you lucky little dog! ” 

“ But why do you run after all these poor people? ” 
said Tom, who liked the giant very much. 

“ My dear, it’s they that have been running after 
me, father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of 
years, throwing stones at me till they have knocked off 
my spectacles fifty times, and hunting me round and 
round — though catch me they can’t, for every time 
I go over the same ground I go the faster, and grow 
the bigger. While all I want is to be friends with 
them, and to tell them something to their advantage, 
only somehow they are so strangely afraid of hear- 
ing it.” 

“ But why don’t you turn round and tell them 
so?” 

“ Because I can’t. You see, I must go backwards, 
if I am to go at all.” 

“ But why don’t you stop, and let them come up to 
you? ” 

“ Why, my dear, only think: if I did, all the butter- 
flies and cockyolybirds would fly past me, and then 
I should catch no more new species, and should grow 
rusty and moldy, and die. And I don’t intend to 
do that, my dear ; for I have a destiny before me, they 
say: though what it is I don’t know, and don’t care.” 

“Don’t care?” said Tom. 


179 


“ No. Do the duty which lies nearest to you, and 
catch the first beetle you come across, is my motto; 
and I have thriven by it for some hundred years. 
Now I must go on. Dear me, while I have been talk- 
ing to you, at least nine new species have escaped 
me.” 

And on went the giant, and the people went round 
after the giant, and they are running unto this day 
for aught I know, or do not know; and will run till 
either he, or they, or both, turn into little children. 

Then Tom came to a famous island, which was 
called in the days of the great traveler Gulliver, the 
Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has 
named it the Isle of Tomtoddies, all heads and no 
bodies. 

And when Tom came near it, he heard such a grum- 
bling and grunting and growling and wailing and 
weeping and whining that he thought people must be 
ringing little pigs or cropping puppies’ ears, or drown- 
ing kittens : but when he came nearer still, he began to 
hear words among the noise; which was the Tomtod- 
dies’ song which they sing morning and evening, and 
all night, too, to their great idol, Examination. 

“ I can’t learn my lesson: the examiner’s coming! ” 
And that was the only song which they knew. 

And when Tom got on shore the first thing he saw 
was a great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, 
“ Playthings not allowed here ” ; at which he was so 
shocked that he would not stay to see what was writ- 
ten on the other side. Then he looked round for the 


180 


people of the island: but instead of men, women, and 
children, he found nothing hut turnips and radishes, 
beets and mangold wurzel, without a single green 
leaf among them, and half of them burst and de- 
cayed, with toad-stools growing out of them. Those 
which were left began crying to Tom, in half a dozen 
different languages at once, and all of them badly 
spoken, “ I can’t learn my lesson; do come and help 
me!” And they asked him to answer all sorts of 
silly questions for them, to which there was no answer 
at all. 

Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest nim- 
blecomequick turnip you ever saw filling a hole in a 
crop of swedes, and it cried to him, “ Can you tell me 
anything at all about anything you like? ” 

“ About what? ” says Tom. 

“About anything you like; for as fast as I learn 
things I forget them again. So my mamma says that 
my intellect is not adapted for methodic science, and 
says that I must go in for general information.” 

Tom told him that he did not know general infor- 
mation, nor any officers in the army: only he had a 
friend once that went for a drummer: hut he could 
tell him a great many strange things which he had 
seen in his travels. 

So he told him prettily enough, while the poor tur- 
nip listened very carefully and the more he listened, 
the more he forgot, and the more the water ran out 
of him. 


181 


Tom thought he was crying: but it was only his 
poor brains running away from being worked so hard ; 
and as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed 
down all over with juice, and split and shrank till 
nothing was left of him but rind and water; whereat 
Tom ran away in a fright, for he thought he might 
be taken up for killing the turnip. 



But on the contrary, the turnip’s parents were high- 
ly delighted, and considered him a saint and a martyr, 
and put up a long inscription over his tomb about 
his wonderful talents, early development, and unpar- 
alleled precocity. Were they not a foolish couple? 


182 


But there was a still more foolish couple next to 
them, who were beating a wretched little radish, no 
bigger than my thumb, for sullenness and obstinacy 
and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the reason 
it couldn’t learn or hardly even speak was, that there 
was a great worm inside it eating all its brains. 

Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he 
saw, that he was longing to ask the meaning of it; 
and at last he stumbled over a respectable old stick 
lying half covered with earth. But a very stout and 
worthy stick it was, for it belonged to good Roger 
Ascham in old time. 

“ You see,” said the stick, “ they were as pretty 
little children once as you would wish to see, and 
might have been so still, if they had been left to grow 
up like human beings, and then handed over to me; 
but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead of let- 
ting them pick flowers, and make dirt-pies, and get 
birds’ nests, and dance round the gooseberry bush, 
as little children should, kept them always at lessons, 
working, working, working — till their brains grew 
big and their bodies small, and they were all changed 
into turnips, with little but water inside.” 

“ Ah! ” said Tom, “ if Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedone- 
by knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, and 
balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them all 
as jolly as sand-boys.” 

“ It would be no use,” said the stick. “ They can’t 
play now, if they tried. Don’t you see how their legs 


183 


have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by 
never having taken any exercise, but sapping and 
moping always in the same place. But here comes 
the Examiner-of-all-Examiners. So you had better 
get away, I warn you, or he will examine you and 
your dog into the bargain, and set him to examine 
all the other dogs, and you to examine all the other 
water-babies. There is no escaping out of his hands, 
for his nose is nine thousand miles long, and can go 
down chimneys, and through keyholes, upstairs and 
downstairs, in my lady’s chamber, examining all little 
boys, and the little boys’ tutors likewise. But when 
he is thrashed — so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has prom- 
ised me — I shall have the thrashing of him: and if I 
don’t lay it on him with a will it’s a pity.” 

Tom went off: but rather slowly and surlily; for 
he was somehow minded to see this same Examiner- 
of-all-Examiners. But when he got near, he looked 
so big and burly and dictatorial, and shouted so loud 
to Tom to come and be examined, that Tom ran for 
his life, and the dog, too. And really it was time: for 
the poor turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed 
themselves so fast to be ready for the Examiner, that 
they burst and popped by dozens all round him. 

As he went down to the shore he passed the 
poor turnip’s new tomb. But Mrs. Bedonebyasyou- 
did had taken away the epitaph about talents and pre- 
cocity and development, and had put up one of her 
own instead, which Tom thought much more sensible : 


184 


“Instruction sore long time I bore, 

And cramming was in vain; 

Till heaven did please my woes to ease, 

With water on the brain.” 

So Tom jumped into the sea, and swam on his 
way, singing: 

“Farewell Tomtoddies all; I thank my stars 
That nought I know save those three royal r’s: 

Reading and riting sure, with rithmetick, 

Will help a lad of sense through thin and thick.” 

Whereby you may see that Tom was no poet. 

And next he came to Oldwivesfabledom, where the 
folks were all heathens, and worshiped a howling ape. 
And there he found a little boy sitting in the middle 
of the road, and crying bitterly. 

“ What are you crying for? ” said Tom. 

“ Because I’m not as frightened as I could wish to 
be.” 

“Not frightened? You are a queer little chap: 
but if you want to be frightened, here goes — Boo ! ” 

“ Ah,” said the little boy, “ that is very kind of you; 
but I don’t feel that it has made any impression.” 

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on him, 
fettle him over the head with a brick, or anything else 
whatsoever which would give him the slightest com- 
fort. 

But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long 
words which he had heard other folks use, and which, 
therefore, he thought very fit and proper to use him- 


185 


self ; and cried on till his papa and mamma came, and 
sent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a 
very good-natured gentleman and lady they were, 
though they were heathens; and talked pleasantly to 
Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived, 
with his thunderbox under his arm. 

Tom was a little frightened at first ; for he thought 
it was Grimes. But he soon saw his mistake: for 
Grimes always looked a man in the face; and this 
fellow never did. And when he spoke, it was fire and 
smoke ; and when he sneezed, it was squibs and crack- 
ers; and when he cried (which he did whenever it paid 
him) , it was boiling pitch; and some of it was sure to 
stick. 

“ Here we are again! ” cried he, like the clown in a 
pantomime. “ So you can’t feel frightened, my little 
dear — eh? I’ll do that for you. I’ll make an im- 
pression on you! Yah! Boo! Whirroo! Hullaba- 
loo!” 

And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder- 
box, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and 
danced corrobory like any black fellow; and then he 
touched a spring in the thunderbox, and out popped 
turnip-ghosts and magic-lanthorns and pasteboard 
bogies and spring-heeled Jacks and sallaballas, with 
such a horrid din, clatter, clank, roll, rattle, and roar, 
that the little boy turned up the whites of his eyes, and 
fainted right away. 

And at the sight his poor heathen papa and mamma 
were as much delighted as if they had found a gold 


186 


mine. Ah! don’t you wish some one would go and 
convert those poor heathens, and teach them not to 
frighten their little children into fits? 

“Now, then,” said the Powwow man to Tom, 
“ wouldn’t you like to be frightened, my little dear? 
For I can see plainly that you are a very wicked, 
naughty, graceless, reprobate boy.” 

“ You’re another,” quoth Tom, very sturdily. And 
when the man ran at him, and cried “ Boo! ” Tom ran 
at him in return, and cried, “Boo!” likewise, right 
in his face, and set the little dog on him; and at his 
legs the dog went. 

At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned 
tail, thunderbox and all, with a “Woof! and ran for 
his life, screaming, “ Help! thieves ! murder ! fire! He 
is going to kill me! I am a ruined man! He will 
murder me ! and break, burn, and destroy my precious 
and invaluable thunderbox ; and then you will have no 
more thunder-showers in the land. Help ! help ! help ! ” 

At which the papas and mammas and all the people 
of Oldwivesfabledom flew at Tom, shouting, “ Oh, 
the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted, graceless boy! 
Beat him, kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, 
burn him! ” and so forth; but luckily they had noth- 
ing to shoot, hang, or burn him with, for the fairies 
had hid all the killing-tackle out of the way a little 
while before; so they could only pelt him with stones; 
and some of the stones went clean through him, and 
came out the other side. But he did not mind that a 
bit; for the holes closed up again as fast as they were 


187 


made, because he was a water-baby. However, he was 
very glad when he was safe out of the country, for 
the noise there made him all but deaf. 

Then he came to a quiet place, called Leaveheaven- 
alone. And there the sun was drawing water out of 
the sea to make steam-threads, and the wind was twist- 
ing them up to make cloud-patterns, till they had 
worked between them the loveliest wedding- veil of 
Chantilly lace, while the good old sea never grudged, 
for she knew they would pay her back honestly. So 
the sun spun, and the wind wove, and all went well 
with the great steam-loom. 

And at last, after innumerable adventures, each 
more wonderful than the last, he saw before him a 
huge, ugly building. Tom walked toward it wonder- 
ing what it was, and having a strange fancy that he 
might find Mr. Grimes inside it, till he saw running 
toward him, and shouting, “Stop!” three or four 
people, who, when they came nearer, were nothing 
else than policemen’s truncheons, running along with- 
out legs or arms. 

Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. 
Neither was he frightened; for he had been doing 
no harm. 

So he stopped; and when the foremost truncheon 
came up and asked his business, he showed Mother 
Carey’s pass; and the truncheon looked at it in the 
oddest fashion; for he had one eye in the middle of 
his upper end, so that when he looked at anything, 
being quite stiff, he had to slope himself, and poke 


188 


himself, till it was a wonder why he did not tumble 
over. 

“ All right — pass on,” said he at last. And then 
he added: “ I had better go with you, young man.” 
And Tom had no objection, for such company was 
both respectable and safe; so the truncheon coiled its 
thong neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping 
itself up — for the thong had got loose in running — 
.and marched on by Tom’s side. 

“ Why have you no policeman to carry you? ” asked 
Tom, after a while. 

“ Because we are not like those clumsy-made trunch- 
eons in the land-world, which cannot go without hav- 
ing a whole man to carry them about. We do our own 
work for ourselves; and do it very well, though I say 
it who should not.” 

“ Then why have you a thong to your handle? ” 
asked Tom. 

“To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are 
off duty.” 

Tom had got his answer, and had no more to say, 
till they came to the great iron door of the prison. 
And there the truncheon knocked twice with its own 
head. 

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tre- 
mendous old brass blunderbuss charged up to the muz- 
zle with slugs, who was the porter; and Tom started 
back a little at the sight. 

“ What case is this? ” he asked in a deep voice, out 
of his broad bell mouth. 


189 


“ If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young gen- 
tleman from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, 
the master-sweep.” 

“ Grimes? ” said the blunderbuss. And he pulled in 
his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists. 

“ Grimes is up chimney No. 345,” he said from in- 
side. “ So the young gentleman had better go on to 
the roof.” 

Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed 
at least ninety miles high, and wondered how he should 
ever get up : but, when he hinted that to the truncheon, 
it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked 
round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him 
up to the roof in no time, with his little dog under his 
arm. 

And there he walked along the leads, till he met 
another truncheon, and told him his errand. 

“Very good,” it said. “Come along: but it will 
be of no use. He is the most unremorseful, hard- 
hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge: and 
thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are not 
allowed here, of course.” 

So they walked along over the leads, and very sooty 
they were, and Tom thought the chimneys must want 
sweeping very much. But he was surprised to see 
that the soot did not stick to his feet, or dirty them 
in the least. Neither did the live coals, which were 
lying about in plenty, burn him. 

At last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the 
top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck 


190 


poor Mr. Grimes, so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, that 
Tom could hardly bear to look at him. And in his 
mouth was a pipe; but it was not alight; though he 
was pulling at it with all his might. 

“Attention, Mr. Grimes,” said the truncheon; 
“ here is a gentleman come to see you.” 

But Mr. Grimes only said bad words; and kept 
grumbling, “ My pipe won’t draw. My pipe won’t 
draw.” 

“Keep a civil tongue, and attend!” said the 
truncheon; and popped up just like Punch, hitting 
Grimes such a crack over the head with itself, that his 
brains rattled inside like a dried walnut in its shell. 
He tried to get his hands out, and rub the place: but 
he could not, for they were stuck fast in the chimney. 
Now he was forced to attend. 

“ Hey! ” he said; “ why, it’s Tom! I suppose you 
have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little 
atomy ! ” 

Tom assured him that he had not, but only wanted 
to help him. 

“ I don’t want anything except beer, and that I 
can’t get; and a light for this bothering pipe, and that 
I can’t get either.” 

“ I’ll get you one,” said Tom; and he took up a live 
coal (there were plenty lying about) and put it to 
Grimes’ pipe : but it went out instantly. 

“ It’s no use,” said the truncheon, leaning itself up 
against the chimney and looking on. “ I tell you, it is 
no use. His heart is so cold that it freezes everything 


191 



I LL GET YOU ONE, SAID TOM; AND HE TOOK UP A LIVE COAL . . 


that comes near him. You will see that presently, well 
enough.” 

“ Oh, of course, it’s my fault. Everything’s always 
my fault,” said Grimes. “ Now don’t go to hit me 
again ” (for the truncheon started upright and looked 
very wicked) ; “ you know, if my arms were only free, 
you daren’t hit me then.” 

The truncheon leaned back against the chimney, and 
took no notice of the personal insult, like a well-trained 
policeman as it was, though he was ready enough to 
avenge any transgression against morality or order. 


192 


“ But can’t I help you in any other way? Can’t I 
help you to get out of this chimney? ” said Tom. 

“ No,” interposed the truncheon; “ he has come to 
the place where everybody must help themselves ; and 
he will find it out, I hope, before he has done with 
me.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Grimes, “ of course it’s me. Did 
I ask to be brought here into the prison? Did I ask 
to be set to sweep your foul chimney? Did I aSk to 
have lighted straw put under me to make me go up? 
Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney of all, 
because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot? 
Did I ask to stay here — I don’t know how long — a 
hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, 
nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a 
man? ” 

“No,” answered a solemn voice behind. “No more 
did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very same 
way.” 

It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the 
truncheon saw her, it started bolt upright — Atten- 
tion! — and made such a low bow, that if it had not 
been full of the spirit of justice, it must have tumbled 
on its end, and probably hurt its one eye. And Tom 
made his bow, too. 

“ Oh, please ma’am,” he said, “ don’t think about 
me; that’s all past and gone, and good times and 
bad times and all times pass over. But may I not 
help poor Mr. Grimes? Mayn’t I move some of these 
bricks away, that he may move his arms?” 


193 


“ You may try, of course,” she said. 

So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks: but he 
could not move one. And then he tried to wipe Mr. 
Grimes’ face: but the soot would not come off. 

“ Oh, dear! ” he said. “ I have come all this way, 
through all these terrible places, to help you, and 
now I am of no use at all.” 

“ You had best leave me alone,” said Grimes; “ you 
are a good-natured, forgiving little chap, and that’s 
truth; but you’d best be off. The hail’s coming on 
soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your little head.” 

“ What hail? ” 

“ Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, till 
it comes close to me, it’s like so much warm rain: but 
then it turns to hail over my head, and knocks me 
about like small shot.” 

“ That hail will never come any more,” said the 
strange lady. “ I have told you before what it was. 
It was your mother’s tears, those which she shed when 
she prayed for you by her bedside ; but your cold heart 
froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven now, and 
will weep no more for her graceless son.” 

Then Grimes was silent awhile ; and then he looked 
very sad. “ So my poor mother’s gone, and I never 
there to speak to her! Ah! a good woman she was, 
and might have been a happy one, in her little school 
there in Yendale, if it hadn’t been for me and my bad 
ways.” 

“ Did she keep the school in Vendale? ” asked Tom. 
And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to 


194 


her house, and how she could not abide the sight of a 
chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how 
he turned into a water-baby. 

“ Ah! ” said Grimes, “ good reason she had to hate 
the sight of a chimney-sweep. I ran away from her 
and took up with the sweeps, and never let her know 
where I was, nor sent a penny to help her, and now it’s 
too late — too late! ” said Mr. Grimes. 

And he began crying and blubbering like a great 
baby, till his pipe dropped out of his mouth, and broke 
all to bits. 

“ Oh, dear, if I was but a little chap in Yendale 
again, to see the clear beck, and the apple-orchard, and 
the yew-hedge, how different I would go on ! But it’s 
too late now. So you go along, you kind little chap, 
and don’t stand to look at a man crying, that’s old 
enough to be your father, and never feared the face 
of man, nor of worse neither. But I’m beat now, and 
beat I must be. I’ve made my bed, and I must lie on 
it. Foul I would be, and foul I am, as an Irish- 
woman said to me once ; and little I heeded it. It’s all 
my own fault; but it’s too late.” And he cried so bit- 
terly that Tom began crying too. 

“ Never too late,” said the fairy, in such a strange, 
soft, new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she 
was so beautiful for the moment, that Tom half fan- 
cied she must be her sister. 

No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes cried 
and blubbered on, his own tears did what his mother’s 
could not do. for him; for they washed the soot off his 


195 


face and off his clothes ; and then they washed the mor- 
tar away from between the bricks; and the chimney 
crumbled down; and Grimes began to get out of it. 

Up jumped the truncheon, and was going to hit 
him on the crown a tremendous thump, and drive him 
down again like a cork into a bottle. But the strange 
lady put it aside. 

“Will you obey me if I give you a chance? ” 

“ As you please, ma’am. You’re stronger than me 
— that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know 
too well also. And, as for being my own master, 
I’ve fared ill enough with that as yet. So, whatever 
your ladyship pleases to order me; for I’m beat, and 
that’s the truth.” 

“Be it so then — you may come out. But remem- 
ber, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you 
go.” 

“ I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed 
you that I know of. I never had the honor of set- 
ting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly quar- 
ters.” 

“ Never saw me before? Who said to you, Those 
that will be foul, foul they will be? ” 

Grimes looked up; and Tom looked up too; for 
the voice was that of the Irish-woman who met them 
the day that they went out together to Harthover. 
“ I gave you your warning then: but you gave it 
yourself a thousand times before and since. Every 
bad word that you said — every cruel and mean thing 
that you did — every time that you got tipsy — every 


196 


day that you went dirty — you were disobeying me, 
whether you knew it or not.” 

“ If I’d only known, ma’am — ” 

“You knew well enough that you were disobeying 
something, though you did not know it was I. But 
come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be 
your last.” 

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, 
if it had not been for the scars on his face, he looked 
as clean and respectable as a master sweep need look. 

“ Take him away,” said she to the truncheon, “ and 
give him his ticket-of-leave.” 

“ And what is he to do, ma’am? ” 

“ Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna ; he will 
find some very steady men working out their time 
there, who will teach him his business; but mind, if 
that crater gets choked up again, and there is an 
earthquake in consequence, bring them all to me, and 
I shall investigate the case very severely.” 

So the truncheon marched off Mr. Grimes, looking 
as meek as a drowned worm. 

And for aught I know, or do not know, he is sweep- 
ing the crater of Etna to this very day. 

“ And now,” said the fairy to Tom, “ your work 
here is done. You may as well go back again.” 

“ I should be glad enough to go,” said Tom, “ but 
how am I to get up that great hole again, now that 
the steam has stopped blowing? ” 

“ I will take you up the backstairs : but I must ban- 


197 


dage your eyes first; for I never allow anybody to 
see those backstairs of mine.” 

“ I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, 
ma’am, if you bid me not.” 

“Aha! So you think, my little man. But you 
would soon forget your promise if you once got back 
into the land-world. For, if people only once found 
out that you had been up my backstairs, you would 
have all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich 
men emptying their purses before you, and statesmen 
offering you place and power; and young and old, 
rich and poor, crying to you, ‘ Only tell us the back- 
stairs secret, and we will be your slaves. Save us 
from the consequences of our own actions, and from 
the cruel fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! ’ Do you 
not think you would be a little tempted then to tell 
what you know, laddie? ” 

Tom thought so, certainly. “ But why do they 
want to know about the backstairs? ” asked he. 

“ That I shall never tell you. I never put things 
into little folks’ heads which are but too likely to 
come there of themselves. So come — now I must 
bandage your eyes.” So she tied the bandage on his 
eyes with one hand, and with the other she took it off. 

“ Now,” she said, “ you are safe up the stairs.” 
Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth, too; 
for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step. 
But when he looked round him, there could be no 
doubt that he was safe up the backstairs, whatsoever 


198 


they may be — which no man is going to tell you, for 
the plain reason that no man knows. 

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, 
high and sharp against the rosy dawn; and St. Bran- 
dan’s Isle reflected double in the still broad silver sea. 
The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang 
among the caves : the sea-birds sang as they streamed 
out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built 
among the boughs; and the air was so full of song 
that it stirred St. B randan and his hermits, as they 
slumbered in the shade; and they moved their good 
old lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their 
dreams. But among all the songs one came across the 
water more sweet and clear than all; for it was the 
song of a young girl’s voice. 

And what was the song which she sang? Ah, my 
little man, I am too old to sing that song, and you 
are too young to understand it. But have patience, 
and keep your eye single and your hands clean, and 
you will learn some day to sing it yourself, without 
needing any man to teach you. 

And, as Tom neared the island, there sat upon a 
rock the most graceful creature that ever was seen, 
looking down, with her chin upon her hand, and pad- 
dling with her feet in the water. And when they came 
to her she looked up, and behold, it was Elbe. 

“ Oh, Miss Elbe,” said he, “ how you are grown! ” 
“ Oh, Tom,” said she, “ how you are grown, too! ” 
And no wonder; they were both quite grown up — 
he into a tab man and she into a beautiful woman. 


199 


“Perhaps I may be grown,” she said. “I have 
had time enough; for I have been sitting here wait- 
ing for you many a hundred years, till I thought you 
were never coming.” 



. . . THEY STOOD AND LOOKED FOR SEVEN YEARS MORE, AND NEITHER SPOKE 

|nor stirred. 


“Many a hundred years?” thought Tom; but he 
had seen so much in his travels that he had quite 
given up being astonished; and, indeed, he could think 
of nothing but Elbe. So he stood and looked at 
Elbe, and Elbe looked at him; and they liked the 
employment so much that they stood and looked for 
seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred. 


200 


At last they heard the fairy say: “ Attention, chil- 
dren. Are you never going to look at me again? ” 

“ We have been looking at you all this while,” they 
said. And so they thought they had been. 

“ Then look at me again,” said she. 

They looked and both of them cried out at once, 
“ Oh, who are you, after all? ” 

“ You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.” 

“No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ; but 
you are grown quite beautiful now! ” 

“ To you,” said the fairy. “ But look again.” 

“You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, 
solemn voice; for he had found out something which 
made him very happy, and yet frightened him more 
than all he had ever seen. 

“ But you are grown quite young again.” 

“ To you,” said the fairy. “ Look again.” 

“ You are the Irish-woman who met me the day I 
went to Harthover!” 

And when they looked she was neither of them, and 
yet all of them at once. 

“ My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes 
to see it there.” 

And they looked into her great, deep, soft eyes, 
and they changed again into every hue, as the light 
changes in a diamond. “ Now read my name,” she 
said, at last. 

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, 
blazing light: but the children could not read her 


201 


name; for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in 
their hands. 

“Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smil- 
ing; and then she turned to Ellie. 

“You may take him home with you now on Sun- 
days, Ellie. He has won his spurs in the great bat- 
tle, and become fit to go with you and be a man; 
because he has done the thing he did not like.” 

So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and 
sometimes on week-days, too; and he is now a great 
man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam- 
engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and 
so forth; and knows everything about everything, 
except why a hen’s egg doesn’t turn into a crocodile, 
and two or three other little things which no one 
will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues. And all 
this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby, 
underneath the sea. 

“ And of course Tom married Ellie? ” 

My dear child, what a silly notion! Don’t you 
know that no one ever marries in a fairy tale, under 
the rank of prince or princess? 

“ And Tom’s little dog? ” 

Oh, you may see him any clear night in July; 
for the old dog-star was so worn out by the last three 
hot summers that there have been no dog days since; 
so that they had to take him down and put Tom’s 
dog up in his place. Therefore, as new brooms sweep 
clean, we may hope for some warm weather this year. 
And that is the end of my story. 


202 


“I heard a thousand blended notes, 

While in a grove I sate reclined; 

In that- sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 
Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 

“To her fair works did Nature link 

The human soul that through me ran; 

And much it grieved my heart to think, 

What man has made to man.” 

— Wordsworth. 


MORAL 

And now, my dear little readers, what should we 
learn from this parable? 

We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, 
I am not exactly sure which: but one thing, at least, 
we may learn, and that is this — when we see efts in 
the pond, never to throw stones at them, or catch 
them with crooked pins, or put them into vivariums 
with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick them 
in their poor little stomachs, and make them jump out 
of the glass into somebody’s work-box, and so come 
to a bad end. For these efts are nothing else but the 
water-babies who are stupid and dirty, and will not 
learn their lessons and keep themselves clean; and 
therefore their skulls grow flat, their jaws grow out, 
and their brains grow small, and their tails grow long, 
and they lose all their ribs (which I am sure you 


203 


would not like to do), and their skins grow dirty and 
spotted, and they never get into the clear rivers, much 
less into the great wide sea, but hang about in dirty 
ponds, and live in the mud, and eat worms, as they 
deserve to do. 

But that is no reason why you should ill-use them: 
but only why you should pity them, and be kind to 
them, and hope that some day they will wake up, and 
be ashamed of their nasty, dirty, lazy, stupid life, and 
try to amend, and become something better once more. 
For perhaps, if they do so, then after 379,423 years, 
nine months, thirteen days, two hours, and twenty-one 
minutes (for aught that appears to the contrary), if 
they work very hard and wash very hard all that time, 
their brains may grow bigger, and their jaws grow 
smaller, and their ribs come back, and their tails 
wither off, and they will turn into water-babies again, 
and perhaps after that into land-babies; and after that 
into grown men. 

You know they won’t? Very well, I dare say you 
know best. But, you see, some folks have a great 
liking for those poor little efts. They never did any- 
body any harm, or could if they tried ; and their only 
fault is, that they do no good — any more than some 
thousands of their betters. But what with ducks, 
and what with pike, and what with sticklebacks, and 
what with water-beetles, and what with naughty boys, 
they are “ sae sair hadden doun,” as the Scotsmen 
say, that it is a wonder how they live; and some folks 
can’t help hoping, with good Bishop Butler, that they 


204 


may have another chance, to make things fair and 
even, somewhere, somewhen, somehow. 

Meanwhile, do you learn your lessons, and thank 
God that you have plenty of cold water to wash in; 
and wash in it, too, like a true Englishman. And 
then, if my story is not true, something better is ; and 
if I am not quite right, still you will be, as long as 
you stick to hard work and cold water. 

But remember always, as I told you at first, that 
this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, 
therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if 
it is true. 


205 








































. 

' 











' 







































\ 













































































































NOTES 


auk — a large Arctic bird that uses its little wings only in div- 
ing; same as a penguin or gairfowl. 

bairn — a child (Scottish dialect). 

Baron Munchausen (mun chow' zen) — a German soldier of 
the 18th century who told wildly extravagant tales of his 
adventures. 

beadle (be'd’l) — an officer who keeps order in a church, 
beck — a stream. 

birched (bercht) — struck with a birch rod; whipped. 

caddis (kad'dfs) — a small fly which spends the first part of its 
life in the water. 

Cephalopod (sef'al o pod) — a class of mollusk; a sea fish with 
arms or tentacles, 
criss-cross-rows — the alphabet, 
clemmed (klemd) — starved (Yorkshire dialect). 

Cocqcigrues (kok' si gruz) — a word coined by Charles Kings- 
ley, probably, 
copse (kops) — a thicket. 

dovekies (duv' kiz) — sea birds found in the x\rctic regions, 
downs — fields of sand. 

eft — a kind of lizard. 

gairfowl (gar' foul) — see auk. 

Galway (gal' wa) — a county in Ireland. 

haud — -hold (Scottish dialect), 
heath (heth) — the open country. 

hidalgo (hi dal' go) — a Spanish nobleman, — not a grandee. 


207 


Holothurian (hoi 6 thu' rian) — one of a large family of sea 
animals. 

hover (huv' er) — a place hidden by something hanging. 

Jan Mayen’s Land (yan ml' en) — a volcanic island in the 
Arctic regions. 

lawyers — those who practice law; sometimes used to mean 
thorns. 

madrepores (mad' re porz) — branching coral whose surface is 
made up of live cells. 

Martinmas (mar' tm mas) — the feast of St. Martin, which 
falls on November 11. 

matin (mat' in) — morning song. 

mollys or molly-hawks — a name applied by modern seamen 
to the smaller kinds of albatross. 

Mrs. Vixen — the mother fox. 

muckle — much . 

North Country — the north of England. 

ower — over (dialect). 

petrel (pe' trel) — web-footed birds that seem to walk on the 
water; probably named for St. Peter, who walked on the 
surface of the sea. 

poacher — one who steals game; comes from the word poach or 
pouch, a pocket or bag: to bag game. 

reach — the part of a stream that runs straight between two 
bends. 

silt — sediment of earth brought down by a river. 

skipper — the master of a ship. 

strids — narrow passages of water; that is, straits. 

truncheon (trim' chim) — a club. 

wear (wer) — a fence of stakes placed in a stream to catch fish. 


208 




■ 




































h 













































































